


Whisper of the Beast

by ParadiseAvenger



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, Horror, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mystery, Religious Conflict, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 14:47:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 68,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadiseAvenger/pseuds/ParadiseAvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For K.L.P. Years ago, the monster was summoned on a hell-hot summer night. Until the end of time, it will take a single life from the Blackheart Family, but it hasn't struck for years, as if dormant. Now, SOMEONE IS DEAD! AU. Adult Themes. SoraXKairi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: July 13, 1876

Please, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! **The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger.** (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

For Krystal Lily Potter. Thanks for the awesome idea and I hope it lives up to your standards!

X X X

~July 13, 1876~ 

It was summer on the islands, muggy and humid and too hot for clothes. In the small attic of a simple white house with all the windows open and the lacy curtains blowing in the stifling hot breeze, two sisters sat on the hardwood floor together in their bikinis and summer cotton dresses, legs crossed Indian-style. Between them was a quickly-made Ouija board. They had written out all twenty-six letters of the alphabet, the numbers zero to nine, the words YES and NO, and the word GOODBYE on separate scraps of paper and then arranged them all in a medium-sized circle. In the center was one of their mother’s best crystal glasses as the planchette, inverted so that the bottom was facing up. Outside, night was falling across the island. 

“Are you ready?” one sister asked the other.

After a long moment of hesitation, the other said, “I don’t think we should be doing this.”

“Come on! Don’t be such a chicken!”

“You know what Mom and Dad said!”

“So what? They’re not here.”

“But, Mio, what if something comes out…?”

They were both quiet for a long moment, staring down at the homemade Ouija board—at the tattered scraps of paper and the crystal glass. The hot breeze whispered through the dimly lit attic like air wafting up from an open portal of Hell, but even so the sisters shivered. 

“Mayu, if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine.”

“No! Mio, I do, I’m so curious. It’s just… I’m afraid,” the second sister whispered. “What if something comes out?”

“Nothing will come out,” Mio said softly. “Now, come on. It’ll be okay, you’ll see.”

“Mio…”

“It’ll be okay.”

Mio picked up the box of matches, struck one, and lit the lantern she had brought up from their room. A warm amber glow filled the attic, casting flickering jumping shadows that refracted off the crystal glass. Silently, Mio put her fingers on the bottom of the crystal glass lightly and looked at her sister expectantly. Mayu shivered, shifted restlessly, and then placed her fingers lightly on top of the glass beside her sister’s. They stared at the glass for a moment and then looked at each other. Mio closed her eyes first and Mayu followed suit, peeking out beneath her thick lashes at the shining glass.

“Ready?” Mio whispered.

Mayu couldn’t find her voice so she simply nodded even though Mio couldn’t see her.

Mio took a deep breath and then asked, “Is anyone there?”

The planchette was still and cold beneath their fingertips. 

“Is anyone there?” Mio repeated.

The glass lurched, practically yanking itself from beneath their hands, and skidded to a stop in front of the word _YES._

Mio wet her lips and they both stared at the glass, dumbstruck, for a moment. Then, Mio asked, “What is your name?” 

They braced themselves, expecting the glass to jerk wildly across the circle again, but it didn’t. Very slowly and purposefully it slid across the hardwood floor, making terrible scratching sounds and spelling out slowly and precisely a single name. _VANITAS._

Mio smiled softly. “See, Mayu, this isn’t so bad. What else should I ask it?”

Mayu shrugged, trying not to smile over her sister’s childish joy. “I don’t know, Mio. Shouldn’t you ask for only good things to happen now?”

“Right, right, right. We will hold open this pathway only so long as good things pass through,” Mio said firmly. She licked her lips. “What should I ask it now?”

“Ask if it can tell the future,” Mayu murmured. 

Mio grinned, her teeth glowing in the candlelight. “You just have to know who you’re going to marry, don’t you, Mayu?”

Her sister blushed. “Come on, Mio.”

“Can you tell the future?”

Slowly, the glass slid through the circle. _YES._

“Want me to ask it who you’ll marry, Mayu?”

“No!” She blushed though it was hard to see in the flickering candlelight. 

“Come on, chicken,” she said to her sister and then asked of the board, “Who is Mayu going to marry?”

Slow considerate movement. _NO ONE._

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

_NO ONE._

“Let it go, Mio. Just ask it something else.”

Mio bit her lip and then asked, “Um, when did you die?”

This time, the glass jerked, screaming across the hardwood beneath their fingers. _NEVER._

“Mio, the glass is hot.”

“It’s just friction.”

The glass kept moving even though Mio hadn’t asked it another question.

_YOU WILL ALL DIE AS PUNISHMENT._

“Punishment?” Mayu whispered. Her voice was small and weak and full of fear. 

“Punishment for what?” Mio demanded. 

_FOR RAISING ME._

Mayu’s eyes welled up with tears. “Mio, what should we do?”

“We have to break the contact. Force the glass over to goodbye!”

Both sisters strained and struggled, but the glass refused to move. It remained firmly stuck on the letter E. 

“Please, stop this!”

_NO._

Mio put her other hand on the glass, trying to shove it over to goodbye with all her strength, but still to no avail. Then, she tried to pull her hand back, but it was firmly trapped on the glass. “Mayu, I can’t take my hands off,” she whimpered. 

“I know. I can’t either,” she whispered.

The glass lurched, spinning around and around and around. Then, it abruptly stopped and spelled out almost too fast for the eye to follow— _BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG._ Then, the same sound crashed beneath the floor and then started on the attic walls. Bang, bang, bang, bang!

“Stop it!”

_NO._

The banging grew even louder and stronger. The floor began to tremble and dust was shaken loose from the ceiling. Beside them, the candle began to flicker wildly. The flames danced and writhed, casting terrible leaping darting shadows on the dark walls. Something crashed down from the rafters of the ceiling and darted across the floor into the deep black shadows. 

_YOU WILL DIE. I WILL KILL YOU._

Mayu was crying, tears streaming down her peaches-and-cream skin, fingers frozen uselessly to the glass. Mio was still struggling, unwilling to give up in her blind terror. She continued alternately to try to tear her hands off the crystal glass and force it towards the word goodbye. The banging on the walls grew louder, shaking the floor, until it felt as if the entire house was trapped in an earthquake. Dust and plaster rained down on the sisters.

Abruptly, Mio’s hands flew from the glass. She fell backwards since she had been heaving on them so hard.

Mayu’s hands were still hopelessly resting on the glass. 

“Mayu!” Mio shouted.

Mayu looked up from the board into her sister’s terrified white face and her skin prickled. She had the sudden feeling that someone was standing directly behind her, breathing icy breath down her neck, and she sobbed helplessly. “Mio…”

From behind her, a terrible voice whispered, “You will die. I will kill you.”

“No,” Mayu sobbed. 

A coldness passed through her that chilled her to the core. She knew that she would never be warm again. A dark shadow walked through the board, but Mayu’s hands remained on the glass in the center. Between the sisters, the shadow took form and shape. Beside Mayu, the lantern crashed over with the sound of breaking glass and all the light in the attic went out. Faint moonlight streamed in through the windows, falling through a faint humanoid figure, dark and shapeless. The only thing the sisters could clearly make out were two glowing yellow eyes that gleamed like lanterns in the pitch darkness, casting a terrifying light throughout the attic. 

“I will have one of the lives in this family until the end of time,” the shadow hissed. In the mouth, there was row after row of deadly-looking broken-glass teeth, crooked and frightening. They caught the terrible yellow light coming from the shadow’s golden eyes. “I will kill one of you.”

Mayu let out a sob, hands still frozen on the glass. 

Mio scrambled backwards from the shadow, desperate and wide-eyed.

The demon they had summoned turned, casting its lighted eyes over first Mayu and then Mio. The mouth twisted into an unhappy grimace and it said, “You are protected by the portal,” to Mayu. It swung back towards Mio, glowing eyes casting darting shadows. “You will have to die.”

Mio let out a terrified animal sound that was sick with fear and took another step back. Her heels knocked into the base of the open window, throwing her off balance. For a moment, she wind-milled frantically, dress whispering and lashing in the hot summer breeze. Then, she screamed and the window was empty, showing only the bleak black night beyond the lacy curtains. There was a heartbreaking wump of her body hitting the ground outside. 

The demon went to the open window so that it blended in with the deep blackness beyond save the glowing yellow eyes, looked down at her body, and said flatly, “That will do.” It turned back to Mayu and said cruelly, “I will have one of the lives in this family until the end of time.”

Mayu sobbed.

It crossed the space between them, knelt, and took her face in its icy-cold hands. “Understand?”

She sobbed and nodded.

“Good. I look forward to it.” 

Then, a hot gust of sulfurous air blew through the attic, tearing all the little scraps of paper that had made up the Ouija board into the air. With the scent of Hell, the demon was gone and Mayu was sitting alone in the attic with her hands on her mother’s best crystal glass while her sister lay dead outside.

X X X

I really want to do an Ouija board, but all my friends are chickens! Grah! 

I love ghost stories so much. Does anyone have an interesting ghost story? I’d love to hear it! I’m a sucker for them.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	2. Present Day: The Blackheart Family

Everyone has some awesome ghost stories and people that are willing to do an Ouija board with them. I’m so jealous of you all! The only weird things that had happened to me is the blind in my bathroom randomly snaps up when no one is near it and you can hear footsteps in my attic and walking up and down the stairs at night and this wooden Santa just fell over when no one was even doing anything. So, that’s my ghost story.

X X X

~Present Day~

Per usual on Destiny Islands, it was a typical sweltering-hot feel-as-if-your-skin-was-melting-off-your-bones summer. The ocean beat its endless symphony on the white beach, the palm trees rattled like bones in the hot air, and the salt mist of the sea sprayed into the air after beating on the black outcropping of rocks. The air was scented with sugar from the ice cream stand on the corner, wet sand, and life. Everything was so wonderful, so still, so perfect. 

Silently, two teenagers were lying on the beach. The boy was stretched out, all long amber-brown taut flesh, shirtless and sandy. His eyes were the color of the sky on a perfect cloudless day and his lips were curved in a faint contented smile. Beside him, curled up on her side so that she was facing him, the girl was beautifully tanned. Her cranberry tresses were like silk spread out on the creamy sand. Like the boy, she had blue eyes, but hers were slightly murky—more like twilight than a perfect cloudless sky. 

It was hard to believe this was going to be the last summer. The last summer before Kairi Blackheart went away to University and left everyone she knew and loved behind on the islands, but she wanted to see the world. She wanted to get away from this little superstitious tragic island. 

“Hey Sora?” the girl murmured.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“What?”

“While attending her mother's funeral, a woman meets a stranger whom she has never seen before. She is intensely attracted to him and its love at first sight. She decides this is the man of her dreams, but the funeral ends and he leaves before she can find out his name or who he is. She asks around, but no one seems to know who he is. Two weeks later, the woman murders her sister. Why?” (1)

Sora groaned and put his arm over his eyes. “Kairi, do you have to ruin the moment with sociopathic riddles?”

“Come on, just answer,” she said, poking him in the ribs. 

Sora sighed. “I don’t know, Kai. I don’t have the mind of a serial killer,” he said. 

She rolled over, laying her arm across his flat washboard belly and soaking up the heat of him. “You’re so sweet, Sora,” she said. “Are you going to miss messed up little old me?”

He put his strong warm arms around her, hugging her to his chest. “Don’t even ask me that,” he said. “I was trying not to think about you leaving.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said and nuzzled into his chest. “You can come with me.”

“You know how much I like it here. I could never leave the island and go to some stinky city.”

“I know, Sora,” she murmured. “I really don’t want to leave you, but I can’t stay here the same way you can’t leave.”

“I understand, but I’ll miss you.” 

He kissed her cheek lovingly and Kairi angled her head so that she could catch his soft lips in an eager kiss. The sand was cool against her side and Sora was so warm against her chest that she felt as if her body was splitting into two. Desperately, she ran her hands down his chest and licked his lower lip. They may have been young, but they loved a lifetime’s worth. Sora hugged her in his arms, cradling her and touching every inch of her exposed bikini-clad body. They kissed for a long time until Kairi pressed her crotch against the bulge of Sora’s swim trunks. Then, with a gasp of surprise, he pulled away.

“The beach is not the best place for this, Kai. You don’t want sand… you know,” he said with a small smile. 

Kairi smiled and kissed him again. “So, where would you like to go?”

“The secret place,” he whispered.

They got up, pressing each other close as if they would be lost if they weren’t touching. They approached the secret cavern and Sora pushed aside the heavy curtain of blossoming purple vines. It was cool and dark inside the cavern so Sora groped around for the lantern and lit it quickly even in the dark. The dim amber glow illuminated their scribbling on the stone walls, the childish pictures they so treasured and the place where Sora had carved their initials in a big lopsided heart. 

There, Sora took Kairi in his arms again and lowered her to the floor. Since they were already half-dressed, Sora barely bothered with the small articles of clothing. He shimmied out of his trunks, pushed Kairi’s bikini top up over her breasts, and pushed the crotch of her bottoms aside. She was already wet and aching for him, but he tormented her by taking his own sweet time. He kissed her mouth, suckled her throat, and trailed a burning path with his mouth down to her breasts. He took her nipple between his teeth, nipping it gently and massaging it with his tongue. His hands ran down her body, touching every secret inch of her until he came to that place, but still did not enter.

“Sora, please,” she gasped out. 

He grinned against her mouth and pushed one long finger deep inside her, stroking the clenching walls of her sex. She writhed, grinding down against his hand in terrible wanting bliss. He put his thumb on her clitoris, stroking it just right so that she was practically screaming his name. She dug her fingers into his bare shoulders and then slid her fingers through the cool chocolate silk of his hair. Kairi gasped and moaned, pleading and whimpering, begging for him.

Finally, Sora stopped his teasing. He parted her gently with his fingers, rubbed himself through her plentiful juices, and sheathed himself deeply inside. He loved that first moment of being inside her—that moment where she was so burning hot and tight and heavenly. He practically came just at the feel of her, but he held it back by looking into her flushed pleasured face. She clutched his face, pulling him down to meet her lips, and kissed him desperately. 

“Move,” she pleaded.

He teased her a little, moving tantalizingly slowly. She wrapped her legs tightly around his hips and dug her heels into his as, encouraging him to move faster. Finally, he pushed all teasing aside and set a racing ravaging pace. She was leaving tomorrow and, right now, he just wanted to ruin her for all men. After all, she had been his first. He moved smoothly inside of her for eternity, matched to her body perfectly since they had been together for so long. He touched her clit, squeezing and twisting it, so that she was screaming out his name. Her voice bounced off the stone walls, echoing around them so that she was crying out forever. 

Her muscles clamped down around the length of him, seizing powerfully and bringing Sora over the edge. He spilled his seed deep inside her, warm and soft. Sora supported the weight of his body on his elbows, looking down into her beautiful face while he softened inside her. 

“Kairi?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” 

She craned her neck and kissed him. Sora laid his head on her chest, feeling her soft breasts and the rise and fall of her breathing. Her heartbeat was slow and lazy, blissful. She threaded her fingers through his soft tresses, stroking his cheeks and his back and his shoulders. There were cute freckles on the tops of his tanned shoulders and she traced them with her fingertip. They lay together for a long while, until night fell cool and deep outside the secret cavern. Then, Sora dressed and Kairi fixed her bikini. They held hands, pressing close to share heat.

Something caught Kairi’s eye. There was something carved into the floor in the corner of the cave—a small sigil that glowed with a faint yellow light. 

“What’s that?” Kairi asked Sora.

He rolled his shoulders. “Beats me,” he said. “Come on. It’s dark.”

Kairi pulled him over to the sigil and peered down at it. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was half-covered by creeping vines. She knelt, pushed the vines back, and for a moment, the sigil felt hot beneath her hands but she knew that was impossible.

“I didn’t draw this,” she said and looked up at Sora. “Did you?”

He shook his head. “I guess our secret place isn’t just ours anymore.”

That thought saddened Kairi so she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him from the secret place. 

Inside the cave, the sigil blazed yellow, brighter than any fire. Then, the shadows shifted, morphed, and took shape. Vanitas straightened up from the corner where he had been shackled down. His yellow eyes gleamed like lanterns and he whispered softly to himself, “Blackheart.” Then, hot sulfurous air filled the cave as if the shaft of Hell had been thrown open. 

…

The Blackheart home was bustling with pre-dinner activity. It was a cute little white Colonial with green shutters, big picture windows, and a rich old-fashioned feel. Inside, Kairi’s father—Richard, a big and formidable man—was sitting in his chair in the living room, watching television with focused intensity, while Kairi’s mother—Deirdre, a sweet baby-faced woman—finished up whipping the mashed potatoes and Kairi’s little sister—Namine, fair and small and wispy in her favorite white lace dress—set the table with fine china. Sora and Kairi walked in, sandy and slightly sunburned, just as Deirdre and Namine finished. 

Rick came in from the living room, limping on his war-wounded leg. He clasped hands with Sora, whom he loved and hated to see Kairi leave. “How are you, my boy?” he asked.

Sora was watching Kairi with his sad sky-blue eyes as she walked away from him to help her mother bring the food to the table. “Hanging in there,” he said softly, sadly. 

“You’re going to miss her?”

“Yeah,” Sora sounded choked to Rick clapped him on the back. 

“Namine’s still here for you,” he said with a wink.

Sora grinned. “You’re terrible.”

Rick laughed, a deep powerful contagious sound that shook the rafters in the attic. “Come on, have dinner with us. One last time, for memories and laughs,” he said.

Sora agreed and took his usual seat at Kairi’s side. She smiled at him and touched his hand, but Sora wanted to pull away. The thought of her leaving was like a physical wound in his chest, a hollow empty space where his heart should have been. Across from him, Namine Blackheart was beautiful and fair and pale, smiling at him with her painted-on petal-pink smile. Yes, she was beautiful, but she wasn’t like his Kairi. Sora would never be able to love Namine as her father wished. Kairi was his only and she was leaving… leaving him behind.

He abandoned those thoughts and enjoyed his last moment with Kairi’s wonderful family before he returned to his own empty dark house. He would miss this—this family togetherness—almost as much as he would miss Kairi. Sure, the Blackhearts would always welcome them into their home, but it wouldn’t be the same.

“Sora, potatoes?”

“Sure.”

She scooped out a big dollop and slammed it down on the plate, denting it in with the bottom of the spoon to make an empty lake. Then, before he could say anything, she filled the space with gravy so that it looked like a half-realized erupted volcano. 

“That’s good! That’s good!” Sora squawked, flailing his arms around like a great bird trying to take off. 

Kairi giggled at his plight and tried to spoon more potatoes onto his plate. Sora snatched the entire bowl and the gravy boat from her and passed it across the table to Rick, who was enjoying his plight equally as much as Kairi was. Deirdre laughed as well, pressing her small hand to her pretty little mouth. 

Up in the attic, darkness and sulfur landed. 

Namine looked up, but no one else seemed to notice anything.

…

The morning dawned typically hot and no less humid than it had been all week. The ocean sparkled like a great sapphire jewel and the sand glittered pure diamond white. On that promisingly perfect morning, Kairi set out her two suitcases on her bed and looked over the contents one final time. Satisfied that she had gotten everything she needed to start a new life in the big city, she zippered her bags and picked them both up. Sora was sitting outside, his motorcycle leaning on its kickstand at the curb. Her father and mother were waiting downstairs in the kitchen, but her sister was out in the garden, pretending she wasn’t crying. 

Sora was sitting on the steps outside, giving her parents a moment alone with Kairi. He would be the one to walk her to the waiting taxi that would take her to the small plane that would take her far away from him. He was tired, having been unable to sleep the night before at the thought of his precious Kairi leaving him. 

Around the side of the house, Namine appeared. She looked impossibly young with her eyes swollen red from crying and still dressed in her pajamas. She had an armful of pink and red tulips gather up in her arms. Silently, she joined Sora on the stairs, but did not say anything. Inside, they could hear Deirdre and Rick bidding farewell to Kairi. 

Then, the door pulled open and Kairi stepped out. Her eyes were sparkling, but she hadn’t started crying just yet. 

Wordlessly, Namine got to her feet and shoved the bouquet of tulips she had cut from her garden into her big sister’s arms. Then, eyes filling with tears, she hugged Kairi tightly, turned, and fled into her garden in the backyard. 

Kairi looked at Sora over the flowers and he shook his head. Silently, he took her bags and carried them to the waiting yellow cab. The driver smiled at him, mouthing ‘Take your time,’ and Sora inclined his head in thanks. Then, he took the flowers from Kairi’s arms and laid them on the seat. 

For a moment, he stood there, just staring at her. Then, he took her into his arms and hugged her tightly. He kissed her, but did not tell her that he loved her again. He didn’t want to be the one to make her cry and he already knew that as much as she wanted to leave, leaving her family and him were hard enough for her. He wanted her to be happy and he did not grudge her for leaving him behind. After kissing her soft mouth, trying not to think about how he would never kiss her again, he kissed her forehead and then stepped back. 

Kairi reached out to him, but he shook his head and she pulled her hands back. Squeezing her eyes shut, she got into the cab and Sora closed the door for her. The taxi pulled away, leaving the white house in the rearview mirror. Only then did Kairi allow herself to break down and cry.

At the curb, watching her leave, Rick came to put his arm around Sora. “At least she had you while she was here,” he said.

Deirdre came to stand at Sora’s other side, touching his arm. “We think of you as family, Sora,” she said kindly. “You’re welcome here anytime.”

“Thanks,” he said and pulled away. It hurt to be here with her parents, at her house, in what was left of her life. It hurt to know that Kairi was really gone from his life now. He loved her. He really loved her! But it seemed that everyone he really loved always left him alone in the end.

…

Namine was crouched by her flowerless flowerbed. She had cut all the tulips off for Kairi, to take with her, to remember her little sister. Now, the flowerbed that had been so bright and beautiful moments before looked lifeless and ugly. She touched the stems and leaves with the flat of her palm, sickened by the hideousness of them. She already missed the blossoms that were the same color as her sister’s hair and the cool twilight shadows that were the same as her sister’s eyes. She already missed Kairi. 

She heard soft footsteps behind her and opened her mouth to tell her parents to ‘Go away!’ but icy-cold hands touched her shoulders, chill sinking deep into her core instantly, and a dark voice whispered, “It’s going to be you.”

Namine whirled around, practically falling over herself, and her hands sank deep into the muddy earth of the mutilated flowerbed. There was a cry on her lips, a scream of fright, but no one was there. The yard was empty of everything save birds, flowers, bees, and the hot summer wind. She looked around desperately in search of the owner of the icy-cold hands. She thought she glimpsed movement at the open window in the attic, a slight brushing of the curtains, but it could have been nothing.

X X X

(1) And the answer to the sociopath riddle is that if the man was at her mother’s funeral, he’ll also be at her sister’s funeral and the woman can meet him again. If you thought that, you have the mind of a serial killer. If you didn’t, well you don’t. People that do, don’t worry about it! I do, too!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	3. After Kairi Left the Islands

On my last name choices, as preemptive action, because everyone likes to tell me that Sora has nothing to do with Cloud and such: Come on people, I changed Kairi’s last name, at least! If the Kingdom Hearts characters had actual last names and I used their actual last names (which would then be the same throughout every story) you wouldn’t say anything about that. So, I’m going to just keep on using the same last names I’ve always used. Get over it! 

Okay, rant over, on with the story.

X X X

The house was dark, but not quiet. At night, the house came alive in the same way roaches crept out from beneath the refrigerator. There was a distant sound of crying seeping up through the floorboards, chilling and weak. 

Silently, a fat black spider scurried out from somewhere in the house. Its multi-faceted yellow eyes scanned the kitchen from its low perspective and then honed in on the sound of crying. Then, the arachnid scuttled along the floor until it reached the tightly closed basement door. To a human, it may have been a barrier, but the spider slipped beneath the door without difficulty. Negotiating the stairs did pose a problem for the spider though so it scaled the wall, got onto the railing, and went down that way. Finally, it lowered itself on a strand of white silk to the floor and looked around again.

The crying turned to begging, desperate and pained. 

The spider crept across the cold concrete floor and stopped, quivering, just beneath the big flat table. Several drops of blood splattered on the floor like rubies from a broken crown. The spider investigated the drops of blood, pinchers quivering with excitement. Then, it clambered up the leg of the table, over the leather restraints, and pale white flesh coated with an elaborate tapestry of crimson blood. 

The crying and begging continued and more blood dripped off the edge of the table. The spider followed the path of the slender white arm, scuttled across the bare heaving chest, and stopped there. It looked up at the six people surrounding the table with its yellow eyes. 

The people all gasped and the bloodied knife clattered to the concrete floor. Immediately, the assembly of people dropped to their knees, chanting and crying out in reverence. Beneath the spider, the cold white chest gasped for breath through its terrible pain. 

Silently, the spider continued down the naked body, considering each passing inch of white flesh with interest. Then, it was at the end of the table and the restrained narrow ankles. The spider lowered itself to the ground and scuttled off into the darkness. 

None of the people saw it go. They just continued chanting and praying. 

The assembly only looked up when the shadows began to boil and writhe, taking shape and form. Like a great bat, the shadows swept across the room, covering everyone in icy-cold. The chanting people gasped and cowered backwards in awe. On the table, tightly bound by leather, the blood-covered young man they had been butchering let out a howl of anguish and pure terror, but to no avail. The shadow swept down on him and with great tearing and slurping sounds, more blood gushed over the edge of the table and covered the concrete floor. The assembly cowered, struck with awe and power. 

From the shadows, the yellow eyes of the fat spider gleamed. 

Then, it was gone. 

…

Kairi Blackheart immediately fell in love with the big city. She loved the big towering buildings like great trees and the beautiful petals of neon that lit up the sky like the bright flowers of a jungle and the way the night sky seemed so far away. It was so different from the islands here. 

She also decided that the city was like a woman—a bitch that used people up like tubes of lipstick and then discarded them, but how beautiful she was. The birds were like ornaments in her flowing sky blue hair, highlighted with fluffy white clouds, and her lips were the river that eventually carried into the sea and connected everything. Her eyes were the sun and the moon, burning so brightly that every flaw and sin was revealed in harsh light, but also silvery gentle and loving, so beautiful that it looked as if she could forgive all flaws and sins. Her body with beautiful, tantalizing, and poisoned by the passage of time and mankind. So, she is lovely, but as she dances through her endless waltz, her hips are causing earthquakes and her feet are causing floods as she tramples rivers and her skin smothers the life from people as she hugs them. 

Yes, the city was like a woman. 

After the plane landed, a cabbie picked her up and drove her to the pre-furnished apartment her parents had already rented for her. It was a nice flat in an upscale neighborhood with an art gallery beneath it and a Chinese restaurant next door. She grabbed her two suitcases and showed the bouquet of tulips from Namine under her arm. It was a struggle to carry them and they were beginning to wilt and shed a trail of pink petals, but she wouldn’t have left them behind for the world. 

Alone, she humped her suitcases and the flowers up the flight of narrow stairs and unlocked the door. 

The flat was everything she had dreamed it would be, though a little smaller. She set down her bags on the couch and put the flowers in the sink, filling it partway with water to keep them from wilting further, until she could find a vase. Then, she wandered the apartment aimlessly. She found a big window in her bedroom, swept back the curtains, and took in the view. Oh, the city was breathtakingly beautiful. 

She was almost too excited to unpack, but she did remove the photographs of her family and her Sora from her bag, setting them down on her dresser. She would not forget her family, her old life, even if she never planned to go back. 

Then, she quickly stripped out of her soft shimmery island sundress, shimmied into jeans and a t-shirt, and left the apartment to enjoy the city and her new life. 

…

After Kairi Blackheart left, Sora Strife spent several days at the beach. He surrounded himself perpetually with friends, but he still had to go home at the end of the day alone and eat dinner alone. His parents had been dead for almost six years now, but that had never really bothered him. He had had Kairi and her family after all, but now she was gone and he was alone… again. He turned on every light in his house as he went, banishing the darkness to the farthest reaches of his home. 

He hated the shadows. 

He hated the darkness. 

Sora was a person of light. 

And in a place like Destiny Islands, cut off from the rest of the world, that was a dangerous thing to be. 

Sora showered quickly, washing the sand and the sweat from his skin, wincing at the tenderness of his pink sunburned flesh. Then, he dressed in his favorite cotton pajamas, a gift from Kairi on his last birthday, and nestled beneath the covers. It was difficult to turn the lights off and let the darkness come creeping into his room at night. In the darkness, he saw all the little yellow eyes. The dark was alive, but Sora closed his sky-colored eyes tightly and slipped is hand beneath his pillow. He touched his father’s iron knife. It was cold yet comforting against his palm.

A dim cry, trapped far back in his skull, locked behind the dim translucent curtain of sleep and dreams, in his own childish voice. ‘Mom? Dad? Where are you?’ 

…

Namine Blackheart was sitting at her desk in her bedroom, sketching her sister’s beautiful face absently. She fished a pack of colored pencils out of the big drawer and slowly added the cranberry color into her sister’s deep rosette tresses. 

Then, as she was filling in the twilight of Kairi’s eyes, a spider dropped down on her desk. 

It was the ugliest spider she had ever seen in her life, all spiked many-jointed legs and a human face twisted with impossible cruelty and lighted yellow eyes. She wanted to call for her parents, but she knew the thing would be gone. She slammed her sketchpad down on the insect, crushing it sufficiently, but a moment later it struggled out from beneath the book completely unharmed. 

This time, she grabbed her water glass and put it over the spider, trapping it beneath the glass. This did stop it. It ran around madly inside the glass, clawing at the sleek sides and trying to escape while it slowly suffocated. Finally, it stopped, crouched down in the center, and just watched her with that ugly humanlike face. Sickened, Namine put a heavy book on top of the glass and left the room to shower. 

When she returned, the glass had been tipped over regardless of the book and the spider was gone. 

She crawled into bed, pulling the covers up over her head and covering her ears tightly with a pillow. Even like this, she still heard the soft footsteps in the attic and then the voice beside her ear, so close that she imagined she could feel hot breath, but each time she looked there was nothing there. Her room was dark and empty save the soft silver moonlight and the terrible voice whispering to her.

“You’re going to die, pretty Namine… I’m going to kill you. You’re going to die and, if I kill you, you will know suffering like no one else. It will be slow and you will bleed. If you kill yourself it will be quick and painless. Go ahead… Die, pretty Namine. _Just die…!_ "

Her blue eyes filled with tears and she sobbed into her pillow. The mattress beside her dipped down and a coldness she had never felt before seeped into her body. 

“Leave me alone!” she shouted and tore back the covers, but her room was dark and empty.

Rick appeared in the doorway, turning on the light and banishing the shadows from her bedroom. “Namine, honey, is something wrong?”

She flopped back against the pillows and murmured, “It must have been a dream.”

“You’re alright then, sweetheart?”

She nodded and put her arm over her eyes to block the bright light. “It was just a dream…”

“Okay, goodnight then, sweetie,” her father said. Then, he turned off the light and closed the door quietly. 

His footsteps had no sooner vanished down the hall when the voice returned. The shadows beside her bed boiled and writhed and took the shape. Yellow eyes gleamed in the darkness, but Namine couldn’t make out any of this creature’s face. She closed her eyes tightly and put her hands over her ears, but she could still hear the monster whispering. 

“I’ll kill you slowly, pretty Namine. I’ll make it hurt. Just kill yourself. Just die, pretty Namine, just die.”

“It’s just a dream,” she whispered, “Just a dream…”

X X X

Kind of a short chapter, but I wanted to show how everyone was getting along after Kairi left and also how Kairi was doing. Now that that’s been established. Next chapter, the real meat!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	4. Namine Blackheart: Pt I

Yes, people, again with the meat-of-the-story thing! Well, what else can I say? I can’t say heart because that would be redundant. It’s Kingdom Hearts, after all! I can’t say core because that’s a word I use for sex scenes. So, what can I say other than meat?

Oh, and if anyone would like to read some hopeless smut for Kingdom Hearts, I found a pretty neat one. Go to MediaMiner. Org and search “Key to the Heart” or this link: http:// mediaminer. org/ fanfic/ view_ch.php?id=138460&cid=477594&submit=View

X X X

~Six Months Later~

Because of the time difference between the islands and the city, the call came in late at night. Kairi deliriously, muddled with sleep and the aftereffects of the party the night before, groped around her nightstand for her phone. Beside her, her new boyfriend groaned and wrapped his arms tightly around her body. He was so warm and soft that Kairi was tempted to snuggle deep into his arms and ignore her ringing phone, but it was her experience that any call that came in in the middle of the night was not something to be ignored and it normally contained bad news. She untangled his arms, found her phone, and answered with a bleary, “Hello?”

“Kairi.” Her mother’s voice was choked with tears and sadness. That was all Deirdre got out before she just collapsed into heartbreaking sobs. 

Kairi sat up in her bed, immediately fully awake by the sound of her mother’s grief. “Mom? Mom, what’s wrong?”

Beside her, her boyfriend sat up and put his warm hands on her shoulders. “What is it?”

She shushed him. “Mom, put Dad on the phone. Mom, can you hear me? Put Dad on.”

There was the rattling scratching sounds of the phone changing hands and then she heard her father’s wonderful voice also heavy with palpable sadness. Kairi’s own eyes began to burn with tears. She knew something was wrong. Something was very wrong!

“Daddy?” she whispered. “Daddy, what’s happened?”

He took a deep shuddering breath and forced out, “Kairi, honey, I need you to come home.”

“What is it?”

“It’s your sister.” Then, he told her what had happened.

Tears flooded Kairi’s eyes and ran down her face. “No,” she whispered. 

Her father started crying and that was all both of them could do for a long moment while Kairi’s boyfriend looked on desperately, wishing he could help but not knowing where to even begin. He twisted the soiled sheets in his hands, watching her trembling naked back and her breasts as she heaved in breath.

Finally, Kairi found her voice and said, “I’ll board the next plane. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Then, she hung up and sat crying for another long moment.

“What happened?” her boyfriend asked. 

She turned to him, twilight-colored eyes glowing with unshed tears. “It’s my sister,” she whispered. “My sister is dead.”

“Oh no,” he whispered and wrapped her in his arms. “Baby, what happened?”

She shook her head. “He couldn’t tell me. I need to get home.” She pushed him away and began dressing. 

He scrambled out of their bed. “Can I come back with you?”

“No.”

“Please, I could help you.”

She turned to face him, eyes gleaming. Then, they suddenly filled with tears and she shakily nodded. He embraced her and kissed her quickly. Then, in a flurry, they packed, bought two tickets for the next flights to Destiny Islands, hailed a cab even at this hour, and were on their way. 

…

Sora Strife was awakened abruptly by a cry in the night. It was a terrible sound, nothing but pain and profound suffering. Somewhere, some small animal was being butchered, slaughtered, murdered. He rose from his bed and went to the window, looking out. The moon cast the world in a strange ethereal silver glow. He could see the shadows moving around in the moonlight, slinking like stray cats. He wished there was something he could do to get rid of them, but how do you kill something that was already dead? Something that had never really been alive?

Wordlessly, Sora got back into bed and tried to sleep.

Again, the cry came, softer, more pained, tragic… 

It was dying. 

Silently, Sora sat in bed, gazing out the window at the blackness beyond. The cry did not come again, but his phone suddenly rang. The sound startled him and he quickly snatched it up. It was Rick and Sora’s heart lurched painfully in his chest. This could mean one of two things: something bad had happened to Kairi or something bad had happened to Namine. 

“Rick?”

“Sora, I need you to come over here.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you when you arrive. Just please, come now.”

“I’m on my way.”

Sora stripped out of his pajamas, stuffed himself into jeans and a t-shirt, and shrugged into his coat. Then, he dashed outside, kick-started his motorcycle, and streaked through the night as fast as he could without breaking any laws. Finally, he came to a stop in front of the Blackheart house. Every light in the house was on, lighting up the block, and Deirdre was standing in the doorway in her tattered flannel robe. He got off his bike and quickly rushed to the door. Deirdre swiftly enveloped him in her arms, sobbing into his neck and shoulder. Rick appeared behind her, his face lined and sad. 

Sora rubbed Deirdre’s back carefully and whispered to Rick, “What happened? Where’s Namine?” It seemed strange that she wouldn’t be here in the living room. If Rick had called Sora, clearly planning to wake him up, it didn’t make sense for Namine to still be in her bed. 

“Deirdre,” Rick said. “Let him go. I need to talk to the boy.”

Sobbing, Deirdre released him and shuffled to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. 

“Sora,” Rick said gently and hugged the boy to him. 

Sora wanted to push Kairi’s father away, but he felt as if the man needed to hold someone. “What happened? Please, tell me. Where’s Namine?”

“She’s dead, Sora. She’s dead.”

“What?” This time, Sora did pull away but it was only so he could look Rick right in the face. “How?”

Rick pulled Sora to him and the older man broke down crying almost immediately. Like he had done with Deirdre, Sora rubbed his shaking back. Wordlessly, Sora hugged Rick and asked the big question. “Have you called Kairi?” It hurt just to say her name out loud. Her leaving was still as raw and sore as a new wound.

Rick nodded. “She’s on her way.”

“Do you want me here?” Sora asked.

Rick nodded.

“Okay,” he said. Even though the thought of seeing Kairi again alternately antagonized and overjoyed him, he whispered, “I’ll stay.”

…

Even though it was a red-eyed midnight flight, the plane was packed. Kairi’s boyfriend, Riku Wise, put the bags into the overhead compartment and jostled Kairi into the window seat. Once seated, she collapsed, sobbing into her hands. Riku shrugged out of his jacket, put it around her trembling shoulders, and then hugged her tightly to him. He wanted to tell her that it would be alright, but her sister was dead. It would probably never be alright again… at least, not for a very long time. 

Kairi quickly cried herself to sleep in his arms. She was heavy and soft in his arms, cradled like an angel. He tenderly brushed some cranberry tresses out of her face and stared down at her. She was so beautiful and so special. He bent his head and kissed her forehead tenderly. 

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Riku. 

Kairi had told him all about her life on the islands—about her family, about her friends, about her old boyfriend, Sora. With her sister’s dead, she would be vulnerable and Riku knew that Kairi had really loved Sora. It would be so easy for her old flame to steal her away from Riku and he would hate to lose her. Then, he gave himself a mental smack and told himself he was being silly. Kairi’s sister had just died and she would need all the love and support she could get. The last thing she needed was Riku’s jealously to add more weight to her shoulders. 

So, he cradled her against his chest for the duration of the flight, listening to her meaningless sleep-babble. She kept crying out, begging and whimpering, but he couldn’t understand what she was saying or what she meant. She struggled against him, trying to get away as if he was hurting her. 

Gently, Riku woke her. “Kairi, what’s wrong?”

“Huh?” 

“You were crying out in your sleep,” he explained.

She shook her head. “Was I?”

“Yeah,” he murmured.

She sat up, pushing away from him, and gathered his heavy jacket tightly around her shoulders. She looked out the window at the shimmering sheet of midnight-blue that was the ocean. The moon skipped across the waves in broken silver shards. The night was beautiful, but so different from the pulsing living night of the city. Out here, the night was still and deep and full of stars. 

“I forgot,” she murmured.

“Forgot what?”

“How dark it was out here,” she whispered. 

Riku hugged her to his chest. “I know, sweetheart, but I’m with you.” 

She didn’t’ say anything, just continued gazing out the window at the endless ink-black night beyond. 

…

When Kairi and Riku arrived at the house, Sora had managed to get her parents seated on the couch and blankly watching television. He settled hot mugs of coffee into their cold white hands and sat down in the big armchair. He wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. He had to keep a cool head because if he started crying, it would all be over for Deirdre and Rick. The floodgates would be unleashed and they would never stop crying. 

When Kairi slammed through the door of her childhood home, Sora hardly recognized her. She was bone-thin and beautiful in that unrealistic way that models were—thin and white and faerie-like. Her rosette tresses still held the last of some thick lustrous curls—a perm, maybe—though they were sleep-mussed and tousled wildly. She was wearing jeans that were so tight they may have been painted on and a clinging t-shirt in pale peach and big loopy black script the read ‘Gorgeous.’ It didn’t look like she was wearing a bra, nipples pert and dark and pressing against the thin pale fabric. Around her shoulders, she was wearing a heavy bomber jacket. 

Behind her, a man walked in. He had a leather satchel in each big long-fingered hand and was wearing a thin t-shirt that suggested the bomber jacket around Kairi’s shoulders was his. He had shoulder-length silver-white hair and big jade-green eyes. He looked like a Chinese vase, like some kind of dragon, delicate and dangerous all at once. The way he stopped close to Kairi and scrutinized Sora revealed that whatever Kairi’s new life was like, this man was a big and important part of it. He was most likely Kairi’s new boyfriend and Sora was caught between being happy she had found someone who had made her happy and knowing that she had gotten completely over him.

“Mom! Dad!” Kairi said and brushed past Sora as if she hadn’t even seen him, but he didn’t grudge her that. She ran to her parents and threw her arms around them both. Immediately, the family collapsed into a group hug and heartbreaking sobs. 

Sora stepped up to Kairi’s young man and said softly, “Let me help you. Her room is all made up for her.”

“You must be Sora,” the man said. 

Sora nodded. Suddenly, he felt like a bug under a microscope. “Yes, I am.”

“I’m Riku Wise, Kairi’s boyfriend,” he said and it was almost like he was marking Kairi as his territory. 

Sora offered his hand and said sweetly, “It’s a pleasure.”

Riku looked taken aback. He put down one of the bags and took Sora’s hand, crushing his fingers in a strong manly grip. Sora didn’t wince at the painful grip, only kept his soft smile firmly in place. Riku released him and picked up the other bag. “Will you show me to her room?”

“Of course,” Sora said and took the bag Riku had set down.

Riku pushed aside his vague jealousy. It turned out Sora was as interested in fighting with him over Kairi as he was in helping the Blackheart family get through Namine’s death. And, considering that Rick had called him over, he must have been important to the family on a different level. If he was that important to Kairi’s family and Kairi as well, Riku had no right to attempt to push the younger man away. Silently, he followed Sora upstairs to Kairi’s old room and apologized as they set the bags down on Kairi’s bed. 

Sora said nothing, only smiled softly and mysteriously. 

…

The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Kairi finally saw her parents off to bed. They were exhausted from crying and from telling Kairi about her poor sweet now-dead sister. Silently, Kairi left her parents’ bedroom and went into her sister’s. The room was exactly how she remembered it, full of flowers and artwork and light. Kairi went to the window and looked out. Beneath the window was a flowerbed and a few feet beyond it was the freshly painted wrought-iron fence. 

In the predawn light, Kairi could see her sister’s blood on it. 

Apparently, Namine had been in a downward spiral for the past six months. She had been increasingly agitated and paranoid, she had night terrors, and she insisted that the darkness was going to kill her. Last night, she had jumped from her bedroom window and been impaled on the fence below. She had committed suicide, but what did it matter? 

She was dead. 

Outside, the front door opened and Sora walked out. She watched him take in a deep lungful of air, stretch, and then turn to look at the beautiful flowerbeds that surrounded the house. She watched him turn his face to the sky, cheeks shimmering with tears as he shamelessly cried for her sister. Kairi put her elbows on the sill and looked out at him, watching him. She knew Sora felt her watching him, but he gave no sign. 

The paperboy was coming down the street, eager for information about the tragedy that had gone down very early that morning. Sora quickly intercepted him, going to talk with the young boy before he could spread any rumors. He was so gentle, so beautiful. Quickly he got the newspaper and saw the paperboy off down the street.

Behind Kairi, the door to Namine’s room opened and Riku stepped in. Kairi felt as if her were walking on her sister’s grave, desecrating her room, but she didn’t’ know why she felt that way. She didn’t want him in here and quickly guided him back out into the hall. 

“How you doing, baby?” he asked.

“Ah, I’m hanging in there,” Kairi said softly.

He brushed some hair back from her face tenderly and gently kissed her lips. 

The front door opened and Sora came in with the paper tucked under his arm. She felt his eyes on her and hugged Riku tightly as if to prove to Sora that she was over him, and said, “I’m going to bed. I want to try and catch some sleep.”

“Okay, sweetheart,” he said and kissed her gently, heedless and unaware of Sora’s presence. 

Kairi went to her old room, lay down in her bed, and tried to get some sleep. Beside her, it felt as if the mattress dipped, but when she rolled over to see if Riku or Sora had come into the room after her, no one was there. She was completely alone.

X X X

This is my third chapter today! Damn! Am I good or what?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	5. The Shadowed Funeral

Oh, I went back and changed the time skip. Instead of two months, it is now six months.

I just realized it was very unfortunate of me to name Kairi’s father Rick and her boyfriend Riku. Those two names are so incredibly similar! Grah!

X X X

Richard, Deirdre, and Kairi Blackheart, Sora Strife, and Riku Wise were all sitting around the kitchen table with an array of pamphlets spread out between them. Sora had cooked pancakes and stacked them on a plate with a bottle of syrup on standby, but no one was in the mood to eat. They were all speaking in low voices, leaning forward and close, and red-eyed. They were like a secret cult, private and secretive and bound even closer by the pain of losing someone dear to them. 

Riku felt curiously left out since all the others at the table had known Namine so well. He was like the third wheel… even though there were far more than three people at the table. Maybe it was because he was sitting in Namine’s empty chair. 

“You know she would want to be cremated,” Kairi said softly. “She wouldn’t want her body under the ground… in the darkness, getting wet and rotting slowly, being eaten by worms…” Her voice grew more and more terrible as she spoke.

Deirdre started to cry and Sora touched Kairi’s hand lightly, giving his head a small shake. She clammed up, face pale and distressed. Her twilight eyes roved the room, rolling in her head like those of a cornered animal. She turned abruptly to Riku and let him swamp her in his strong arms. 

Sora tried very hard not to look like she had kicked him and turned to Rick. “She would want to be cremated, Rick, you know that,” he said to distract himself from the sight of her being comforted by Riku. 

Rick nodded and wrote that down in his neat handwriting on the yellow legal pad in front of him—Cremation.

“There’s still the service. She’ll need a coffin for that,” Sora continued. “Maybe some kind of pale white wood would suit her well.”

Rick wrote that down too. 

“We need to start contacting relatives,” Sora continued. “I really think you two should be the ones to call. It would be more personal that way.”

Deirdre shook her head, weeping softly. Her dark hair stuck to her wet cheeks like raven feathers. 

Rick wrote down—Call relatives—blankly. Under the table, he rubbed his war wound as if he would rather be hurt a thousand times over just to have his daughter back, alive in his arms so that he could tell her that he loved her just one more time. But he couldn’t… Namine was gone, dead, by her own hand. Slowly, Rick’s eyes filled with tears that streamed down his cheeks.

Sora turned to Kairi, avoiding the sight of her father soundlessly crying only to be confronted with seeing her crying in Riku’s arms. He bit his lip, knowing that Riku could see the pain in his face. “Kai, do you mind if I make the calls?”

Through her sobbing, she shook her head. 

Desperately, Riku rubbed her back and stared at Sora. Riku didn’t seem to know what to do with a crying woman and Sora wished for a moment that she would turn to him. He would love to hold her and comfort her, but she had left and she was Riku’s now. 

Sora was alone… so alone… 

He stood up abruptly and left the table. Tears burned in his throat—tears for Namine, tears for himself—but he struggled to hold them back. The mess from his pancake-making was still piled up in the sink and he turned on the faucet to disguise the sounds of his inner struggle, of the pain that wanted so badly to come out. He had to keep a cool head because he was the only one keeping these people together right now. From the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow form in the corner like something alive, but when he turned to look directly at it, it was gone. 

…

Aside from having an unfortunate name, the Butcherson Funeral Parlor was painted a hideous shade of storm-grey that made the prospect of going inside even more bleak. It was an old Victorian mansion with a wraparound porch and big picture windows. Inside, the walls were painted what was supposed-to-be-soothing peach with run-of-the-mill thick carpet on the floor. Padded folding chairs were set up in neat rows in front of the beautiful coffin and several massive bouquets of flowers set up on stands. On the tables throughout the room were many photographs of Namine and her family throughout the years. Beside them were boxes of tissues and mints with trashcans on the floor nearby. The entire building was ripe with the heaviness of grief and pain. 

Inside, Sora was standing at the door, greeting people as they came in and herding them toward the Blackhearts were they were assembled in front of Namine’s pale coffin. The casket was open and the mortician had done a wonderful job of filling in the holes where she had been impaled by the fence with mortician’s putty. She looked as beautiful now as she had in life, but there was something… troubled in her face. Even in death, she looked tormented—a slight wrinkling of her brow, a downward curve to her pink lips, a fear about her face. 

Riku was lingering like a lost puppy at Sora’s elbow as Sora hugged person after person. Everyone was happy to see him, thanked him for being with the Blackhearts at this difficult time, and asked if he was still with Kairi. It always hurt to lightly smile and say, ‘No,’ but he did each time. And each time, behind him, he felt Riku bristle. 

There was a beautiful young man that crept through the door like a secret. Sora almost called out a small greeting to him, but he decided not to and bit his tongue. The young man looked back at him as if grateful and then vanished into the crowd.

Finally the last of the stragglers came into the parlor and Sora greeted them with careful hugs and a murmur of thanks. Then, he peeked around the corner to be sure everyone was seated and comfortable. The Blackhearts were in the front row, holding on to each other and crying. Beside Rick, there was an empty seat that Sora was sure was meant for him and, beside Kairi, there was a place reserved for Riku. But Sora did not wish to sit beside Rick or even beside Kairi. 

It would have been too painful, far too painful…

Instead, he wandered the few rooms of the funeral parlor. The scent of flowers disguised the smell of death, but he knew it lurked just beneath the surface. Finally, he found a small room with a single armchair. It was clearly a private place for grief and he slipped into it greedily. Only there did he allow himself to cry quietly for Namine and for himself. 

…

In the ‘slumber room’ of the Butcherson Funeral Parlor, the preacher was speaking about Namine with tenderness and sweetness though he had never met Namine. Somehow, that made Kairi unspeakably angry. Who was this man to define her sister? He had never even met her! He had never looked into her beautiful eyes or seen her garden or listened to her laugh! Who was he to speak about her?! But, quickly, he was finished speaking and he invited whoever wished to say a few words about Namine Blackheart to come forward.

Kairi wanted to say something, but suddenly all the words flew from her mind. She gasped like a fish out of water, hopeless. Riku turned to her and she saw his mouth move, but she couldn’t hear the words he was saying to her. She stood up and stared forward at the podium where the preacher had been standing only moment before. Now, as if he had appeared from the shadows, there was a startling young man standing behind it. 

He looked like a ghost, like something risen from the grave of the earlier and more decadent century. He was white pale with a large bruise on the side of his face and what looked like a deep cut at this throat, still bloody and angry-looking. There was a scar at the corner of his mouth, but he was still alarmingly beautiful with his golden sleeping-beauty-blonde hair and ocean-blue eyes. Silently, he placed his hands on the podium and Kairi glimpsed bandages going up beneath the sleeves of his dark suit coat. 

He cleared his throat and began quietly, “Namine was a beautiful girl. She will be missed by a great many people—family, friends, and even by people who had only spoken to her once. They will miss her face at the video store where she worked. They will miss seeing her smile and hearing her laugh. She was such a special girl. Hers is a life that was snuffed out far too soon, but she is not really gone.” He paused, shaking his head while tears welled up in his blue eyes. “No, not really gone. She will live on in our hearts forever.” 

Then, he stepped back from the podium. 

There was a small smattering of applause for him, but then the mysterious young man was gone from the room. He slipped out like a stray cat, like a stray shadow trapped by the light. The podium was empty for a long moment before Riku gave Kairi a small push. She staggered to her feet and gripped the podium tightly in white-knuckled hands. For a moment, she stared out at the people who had come here to love and honor her sister. There were so many people here, even unfamiliar faces, so many people who had loved her sister. Her eyes welled with tears and she pressed both hands to her mouth. 

“I’m sorry, everyone,” she whispered. “I need a minute.”

Then, just like that, she rushed from the room. 

There was silence in the slumber room while everyone cried silently to themselves or whispered small stories about Namine to each other. It was a soft atmosphere that had developed. It felt like they were all waiting for something. After a long moment, Sora entered the room and took a place behind the podium. His eyes were dry though red-rimmed and his voice was a little hoarse. Even so, he spoke with strength and some small degree of happiness. 

“Namine, what a girl,” he began. “I remember the day Kairi brought me home to meet her family—her beautiful mother who cooks like an angel but could strip me down to my bones with those eyes of hers and her father who had been through the war and scared me to death!”

There was some strained laughter.

“The only one of her family who didn’t scare me was Namine. In fact, she took me aside that night and gave me some good advice. She told me, ‘My sister likes flowers, but not roses. You much never give her roses. She thinks they’re cheesy.’ And I asked her what I was to give to such a complex woman and she only smiled at me mysteriously. It turns out Namine was the one I really should have feared. You see, Kairi hates every flower except roses when they’re coming from a man. She believes roses to be the ultimate display of love. So, Namine played me good.”

There was more laughter, less strained this time. 

“So, over the years I dated her sister, she played a great many pranks on me and every single time, I fell for them! But, I’d like to think that over the years, she grew to like me more. Even if she didn’t, at least she stopped tormenting me.” Sora smiled. “She was a wonderful special young woman. Like my friend said before me, she will live on in all of our hearts. She will never be truly gone until we all forget her. So may I ask, who among us will forget her?”

There was a small quiet murmur. 

“Come on, who will forget her? No one?” Sora smiled, eyes shining. “Well then, who will remember her?” He raised his own hand first to encourage other to follow and sure enough, the entire room was soon a sea of raised hands. “Good,” he said with an even broader smile. “You see, she’ll never really be gone.”

Deirdre sobbed, stood up, and embraced him. Rick followed suit, smothering Sora in his big arms. 

Kairi entered the back of the room just as Sora finished and she realized that she had missed her moment to say something about her sister. After all, she had been gone for six months. What right did she have to speak about her sister? Sora knew Namine so much better now. 

Kairi had missed out. 

…

As the Butcherson Funeral Parlor emptied out, the shadows beside Namine’s coffin boiled and writhed. For a moment, to anyone watching it would appear as if a young man dressed entirely in black with deep onyx hair was leaning down over her to say goodbye, but it was not. 

Looking in from the window, Namine’s mysterious speaker saw the demon take form and shuddered. As if sensing his eyes on him, the monster turned and looked at him with those yellow lantern-like eyes. Quickly, the mysterious speaker hurried away, but he could still feel the demon’s eyes on him as they had been on Namine for the past six months until the night she died.

…

Since there was to be no burial, the small funeral procession followed the hearse to the crematorium and a few people stayed to watch as Namine’s body was slipped into the incinerator. Then, Deirdre took her daughter’s ashes, cradling the exquisitely carved box to her chest and sobbing even harder. Together, Sora and Rick led her back to the car and Sora drove them home. In the backseat, Kairi pressed herself against Riku and smothered her cries with his chest. 

Sora pulled the car to a halt in front of the Blackheart house and the few cars that had followed for a small gathering stopped behind him. Again, Rick and Sora hustled Deirdre—still clutching Namine’s ashes to her chest—out of the car. Riku and Kairi climbed out of the backseat, arms around each other. Sora guided everyone into the house like a smiling hostess and efficiently gathered them all in the kitchen. Once that was finished, he took a big breath and sneaked out the back door to be among Namine’s garden. 

The flowers were still burgeoning beautifully—glowing as if inlaid with life. Silently, Sora knelt before Namine’s favorite white rose bush and cupped one of the blooms in his palms. Quietly he whispered to it, telling it everything he had said at the funeral and he thought that maybe Namine could hear him even if it was just his wishful thinking. From the kitchen window, Riku called to him, saying that Deirdre was asking for him so Sora wiped his eyes even though he wasn’t crying and returned to the house.

…

By the time the last of the guests had left, it was nearly ten o’clock. Rick didn’t want Sora riding home in the dark on his motorcycle so he asked the boy who was like his son to stay the night with their little broken family. Sora wanted to protest, to go home to his own bed and his own private darkness, but Rick’s eyes were so pleading that he couldn’t say ‘No.’ Instead, he gave Rick a strained smile and nodded his head, hair feathering against his cheeks, limp and lifeless as a bird that had been shuddering and shuddering against the window—trapped. 

Deirdre had already fallen asleep on the couch earlier and Rick gently carried her upstairs to their bedroom and snuggled up beside her. He left their door open, a typical parents watching over his remaining children, but Sora quietly closed the door either way. The nightlight in the hallway cast a warm amber light across the floor that he used to guide himself down the dark hallway. In the kitchen, Riku and Kairi were drinking hot chocolate. Kairi’s eyes were dark and out-of-focus, but Riku looked merely stressed and rumpled. Sora gave Riku a small wave and the other man did a little finger-wave. 

After making rounds on the rest of the house, checking windows and doors, Sora went to shower, but grouched over his lack of clean clothes. Regardless, he stripped and laid out his clothes on the vanity and stepped beneath the burning spray. He relished the embrace of the warm water and the grief sloughing off his flesh like a layer of heavy grime to swirl down the drain. He scrubbed himself until his skin was pink and sore, shut off the water, and stepped out. 

As he was wrapping the fluffy white towel around his hips, the shadows in the drain boiled and bubbled. They pushed out and pulsed, taking a low small shape that crouched in the bottom of the tub. The rat focused beady black eyes on Sora’s bare caramel-colored flesh, soaking in the light of the young man’s presence. A long snakelike forked tongue snaked passed the rat’s lips, lapping at the water gathered in the bottom of the tub. Silently, Sora redressed in his dirty clothes and toweled his hair viciously until it was sticking up in several directions. He turned off the light and left the bathroom without ever noticing the rat crouched in the tub. 

The mouse grinned to the best of its abilities, black tongue lolling out of its twisted broken-glass mouth. It seemed his power was finally growing. The young man had not sensed him even though, like the girl, he was a person of light. His power was growing. 

…

Kairi carefully untangled herself from Riku’s arms, slipped out of bed, and shrugged into the robe hanging in her closet from another lifetime ago. She didn’t bother putting on her slippers or socks and padded, barefoot, to her sister’s bedroom. The bed was neatly made with a patchwork quilt their mother had hand-sewn and the windows were shrouded in thin gauzy cloudlike curtains. The walls had some of Namine’s best artwork, framed and shining in the light. Her bedroom was like a fantasy, a soft and more beautiful world. The only dark discrepancy was the ornate box lying on the pillows that was full of Namine’s ashes, but Kairi tried not to look at it. 

Silently, she went to Namine’s closet and pulled open the bi-fold doors. Gently, she touched the wardrobe of entirely white and pale pastel colors—sundresses, t-shirts, stone-washed faded jeans, gauzy skirts, with rows of flip-flops in an organizer on the door and all her undergarments and bikinis folded neatly in a small dresser. 

The bookcase was shadowed even with the light on so Kairi couldn’t see what new titles were on the shelves but she knew a few by heart—Nancy Drew Mystery Novels; a row of Francesca Lia Block’s books like Echo, Violet and Claire, How to (Un)Cage a Girl, and Dangerous Angels; The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Ella Enchanted, The Lovely Bones, and other such innocent wonderful stories. Namine was such a sweetheart… such a beautiful angelic dead sweetheart. She ran her fingers over the row of spines, feeling the dips and bumps like the ribs of a rotting body. 

She roamed to her sister’s desk and quietly opened each drawer. Inside each drawer were countless art supplies—colored pencils, drawing leads, acrylics, water colors, cardstock paper, heavy watercolor paper, watercolor pencils, chalk and oil pastels, brushes as thick as a finger to as thin as a butterfly’s wing, tissue paper in rich colors, glues and glitter, and found materials. Kairi rummaged around until she found her sister’s sketchpad and then sat down with it clasped to her chest. After she was convinced she would not cry on the pages, she opened the book and looked through the countless drawings. 

She smiled sadly as she leafed through the sketchpad. Namine had a lot of drawings of Kairi and of Sora on the first pages, both together and separate. She had drawn her garden and their parents, people at school, birds and bees and butterflies, and half-open doors with tendrils of another world creeping out around the jamb. They were all unspeakably beautiful and sweet and innocent. It was almost as if Namine was still a child here. 

Kairi sniffled and rushed to the bed where the box of ashes was lying. She grabbed it and clasped it to her chest, sobbing into her arms and the box. “Why?” she whispered. “Why did you have to die like this and leave me? Why did you have to become nothing but ashes?!” She sobbed harder, begging answers to the torturous questions, but no answers came to her. 

…

Outside in the moonlight, wrapped in the scent of the ocean, a dark young man was lurking in the darkness. He touched the bloodstained fence and looked up at the Blackheart house. His eyes caught the light and they were strangely colored as if caught in a change between gold and blue, swirled and stained. Sleeping-beauty-blonde tresses framed his pale handsome face. He was the likeness of the mysterious speaker at Namine’s funeral, but there was a frightening difference between them now… even if they were the same person. This young man was monstrous, something evil inside him. The other had been injured, broken and shattered inside, but glossed over with something powerful. Silently, the youth touched the place where Namine had died. Then, he brought his hands to his mouth as if to taste her blood, but there was no wet blood left on the fence. A fair amount of time had passed since her death. The sounds of crying drifted down from the girl’s open window, tainting the night. The dark youth looked up at them for a long moment and then silently walked away into the night. 

…

It was a little after eleven o’clock. The house was dark and quiet, still but no less heavy with grief than it had been during the day when Sora walked out of the bathroom. The kitchen was empty and dark save the small nightlight burning beside the microwave. Apparently Kairi and Riku had retired to her bedroom shortly after Sora got into the shower. Sora was grateful for the emptiness, the faint light, and the stillness. He wanted quiet. He wanted time to think, but it was never that easy. 

There was a small knock on the threshold of the kitchen and he turned to see Riku standing here, looking sheepish. 

“Riku,” Sora murmured. “Is something wrong?”

“Um,” he fidgeted, unsure exactly what he could tell Sora that wouldn’t inadvertently rub salt in his wounds. 

As if reading his mind, Sora said, “It’s okay. You can tell me.” He took down two glasses, filled them with milk, and sat down at the kitchen table. After a long moment, Riku joined him, cupping both hands around the glass as if the beverage was warm. Sora took a long patient drink while he waited. 

“It’s Kairi,” Riku said finally. “She got up from bed and went into her sister’s room.”

Sora nodded, cerulean eyes half-lidded. “She’s probably crying. Kairi is not the kind of person to share her pain with…” he cut his eyes to Riku, “someone she doesn’t think will understand.”

Riku didn’t know whether to be offended or not so he waited for Sora to explain himself and, sure enough, the younger man did. 

“You didn’t know Namine and now you never will. Tell me, do you have siblings?”

Riku shook his head. 

Sora inclined his head, shadowing his eyes with his hair. “Ah,” he murmured and was quiet for a long moment. Then, pleadingly, he said, “Don’t press her, please. She won’t want to talk to you about her pain. She doesn’t think you’ll understand.” He held up a hand before Riku could protest. “I’m not saying you wouldn’t, but that’s what she thinks. Kairi is not one to put her pain on display. So, please… just let her be. Just let her cry.”

Riku looked into Sora’s soft exhausted face and nodded. Then, he asked, “Would she talk to you?” 

Sora twisted his glass in his hands. “In another lifetime, if we were still together, yes. She would talk to me without question and she still might talk to me now about her grief simply because I was with her sister when she was not, but…” He met Riku’s jade-green dragon eyes. “You don’t have to worry, Riku.”

“Worry?”

“You think I’ll take her from you, but you don’t have to worry. Kairi and I had our time, but I respect that she is with you now. You don’t have to worry.” Sora smiled, but there was something about it that made Riku feel as if he had reached across the table and punched Sora in the face. “You don’t have to worry,” he said again, finished his milk, put the glass in the sink, and went to the living room to make himself comfortable on the couch.

Riku remained seated at the kitchen table. The house was quiet save the sounds of Sora struggling to get comfortable and the distant sounds of Kairi crying. Silently, Riku washed both glasses and put them on the drain board. He stood at the kitchen window for a moment, looking out at the darting shadows. Then, he returned to Kairi’s bedroom to wait for her to return to bed, but he was asleep long before she returned to his arms.

X X X

I feel like I’m over-using all the changes in perspectives, but I want to hit every character. So, I guess I’ll deal with it. Oh, well!

Wow! Was this ever a long chapter?!

Questions, comments, concerns? 

REVIEW! You are all being very bad reviewers for this story!


	6. The One with Sora's Face

ParadiseAvenger’s Recommendation Board: (which transcends the bounds of stories!)

Everhopeful83’s A Past Nightmare’s Shadow. 

COME ON PEOPLE! I KNOW YOU HAVE HEARTS! Read and Review, please! 

Or else I’ll break out my umbrella and become so very warlike that you will all be running for the hills! And you don’t want me to become warlike with my umbrella so you’d better do as I say! (I’d make a great terrorist, wouldn’t I?)

X X X

The grandfather clock downstairs in the living room tolled midnight. It was loud and ringing, startling Sora from his hard-won sleep. Deliriously, he peered at the shining face through the darkness, reminded of an old lullaby he had heard somewhere—‘The moon has a face like the clock in the hall. She shines on thieves on the garden wall…’ After a long moment, feeling as if the entire house was holding its breath and waiting for him to slide back into the arms of sleep, Sora lay down and pulled the covers over his head.   
Thankfully, the clock did not toll every hour, only noon and midnight, and he was not woken again.

…

In the attic of the Blackheart house, Vanitas wrapped himself in the heat of Hell and went to the window, looking out over the island not unlike the watchful moon. He sensed a slinking shadow pawing at the darkness left by Namine’s blood on the wrought iron fence. He called out to it, but his fellow monster appeared not to even hear him. Snarling, Vanitas stalked away from the window, slinking deep into his sheltering shadows. 

It seemed the years he had spent trapped beneath the power of the sigil Mayu Blackheart had placed on him had weakened him considerably. He couldn’t even call a small shadow-creature to do his bidding. He had been trying to take his blood from the family, to kill pretty Namine, but he could barely muster up the strength to force his cold into her. The only thing he was able to do was summon himself different physical forms that had no power, but thankfully he had driven the girl to madness with his mere presence. 

Snarling, he paced back and forth in the darkness, enjoying the way his lamp-like eyes illuminated the corners and reaches. He still saw the two beautiful sisters—Mio and Mayu Blackheart—sitting around their home-made Ouija board, calling him forth from Hell. 

Stupid girls… 

This island was a black portal and had been since the dawn of time, since The Disease had struck. The people of this island were all worshipers of the darkest power. They had been making deals with demons and monsters for eternity and continued to do so now because they were trapped on the edge of modern civilization, isolated from the rest of the world. 

Stupid girls…

But then, before Vanitas had even been able to kill again, Mayu had found white magic and managed to imprison him. So, maybe the girl wasn’t so stupid after all. Vanitas turned to the deepest pool of shadows in the attic and put his hand into them, trying to call forth his servants and minions, his powers, or even his weapon, but nothing materialized in the darkness. He was still weak, unbearably weak, useless even. Silently, he turned himself into a hideous spider with a humanlike face and crept through the rafters of the Blackheart home. 

…

Across town, the house was dark and finally silent. The creeping spider that had witnessed the ritual was long gone now and the blood had been mopped from the basement floor to discourage vermin. Even so, the pale young man was strapped to the terrible table. His wrists and ankles were rubbed raw and torn by the heavy leather bonds. He had been struggling earlier, but by now had gone very still. He would have appeared dead if not for the steady rise and fall of his white blood-smeared chest. Regardless of his injuries, he was not near death. 

Silently, as if materializing from the deep shadows that pooled all throughout the basement, his likeness crept out and peered down into his face. Golden eyes gleamed through the dimness, though not with the glowing lantern-likeness of the shadow-creatures his parents and the rest of the worshipers tried to summon. With small touches of tenderness, his likeness produced a small glass of water and pressed it to his parched lips. Eagerly, the bound youth drank until the glass was grievously empty. 

“Hurting?” his likeness murmured. White jagged teeth gleamed in his cracked mouth as he spoke, catching some faint traces of pale moonlight that crept in through the low dirty windows. 

“Yes,” the injured young man croaked and tested his painful bonds. They still held as strongly as they had hours before. 

His likeness touched his bare chest with his ice-cold hands as if to explore the flesh heated with fever regardless of the chill in the basement. Suddenly, the soft touch found the freshly broken rib that pressed fiercely against the flesh at a sharp angle. 

The other youth cried out, whimpering in quiet agony and writhing on the table. “Don’t! That hurts,” he begged. 

His likeness wordlessly withdrew his cold hands from the aching break in his chest. “Thirsty?” he murmured without an obvious concern for the pain he had just caused. 

The bound youth nodded. 

Silently, his likeness waded through the shadows to the sink and refilled the small glass he had. In the depths of the shadowy sink, something screeched at him in desperate pain, sensing his presence and begging for release, but he could not make out what was butchered there in the deep inky darkness of the basement. Not that he cared either way. He simply filled the glass and returned to the injured young man’s side. Again, he helped him to drink and put the glass away into the pocket of his heavy coat even though the night was warm.

For a moment, he stood staring down at the tormented youth that was his likeness—lashed and tortured, bloodied and beaten—and his golden eyes were touched with a faint thread of blue, but it only lasted a second. Then, as silently and as suddenly as he came, he had melted back into the shadows and was gone. 

The bound young man was alone in the darkness again, feebly testing his bonds even though he knew it was hopeless. He turned his eyes to the dirty windows, staring out at the faint silver moonlight, searching for any thread of light in this deep dark pit of hell. 

…

Regardless of the deep all-encompassing darkness of the night and the tragedy of the Blackheart household, the morning dawned bright and cheerful like a typical Destiny Island day. The birds were twittering, a distant dog was barking, and the ocean was washing on carelessly at the white sand. The morning light streamed through the bloodstained wrought-iron fence and filled the flowers which were still glistening with the night’s dew with light. 

Sora overslept and woke with a start to the smell of bacon and coffee. When he cracked open his cerulean eyes, he found Riku setting out a plate and a mug of each on the small table in front of the couch. Sora must have looked startled because Riku gave him an easy smile that forced him to quickly smile back. 

“What time is it?” Sora asked as he sat up and took a suspicious sip of coffee. He only liked it when it was practically a cavity waiting to happen, loaded with sugar. Surprisingly, it was perfect and that must have shown on his face.

“Deirdre made it for you, said you needed it special. She put half the sugar bowl in it.” Riku said this with obvious amusement and not a scrap of jealousy or concern. “And calm down,” he continued. “It’s only a little after eight. You haven’t overslept.” 

Sora rubbed his eyes and took a long drink of the coffee.

“You’re going to burn yourself,” Riku said.

Sora glowered at him over the rim of the mug. “You’re not my mother,” he said and gulped the remainder. 

Riku rolled his eyes at the younger boy’s childishness. Sora Strife was turning out to be a very easy person to like, regardless of Riku’s initial apprehension towards him. He was friendly and sweet, sensitive and kind, happy with an easy honest smile and a soft voice that smoothed over every situation. Riku felt as if he had known Sora forever, as if they had grown up together. He was beginning to see why Rick spoke of him like a son and treated him like part of the family. If Riku had a daughter, he would have wanted her dating and marrying a man like Sora. 

“Who else is up?” Sora asked him as he eyed the bottom of his empty coffee mug. Then, he picked up the plate of bacon and eggs, put a forkful in his mouth, and chewed slowly as if enjoying the last meal of his life. 

“Deirdre and Kairi. Rick’s still sleeping. Deirdre said he kept waking up with nightmares.”

“Nightmares?”

Riku nodded and was quiet for a moment, gnawing at the corner of his mouth. Then, he said softly, “She told me he was the one who found Namine… impaled on the fence.”

Sora winced as if the thought hurt him physically and he pushed aside the food he had been picking at. 

Riku suddenly wished he hadn’t spoken. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Sora shook his head. “It’s not your fault, Riku. It’s nobody’s fault.” Then, he untangled himself from the mess of blankets and pillows on the couch, stood up, padded barefoot across the floor, and took both the plate of food and the empty mug into the kitchen. There was a muted clank as he set them down in the sink.

“Oh, Sora,” Deirdre murmured and took the young man into her arms. Sora hugged her tightly, rubbing her back tenderly, but she did not cry and neither did he. For a long moment, they stood in the relative safety of each other’s arms, keeping the rest of the world at bay.

Kairi was sitting at the small table with her own mug of coffee and plate of breakfast. Jealously, she looked on as Sora and her mother comforted each other. She felt Riku’s presence behind her and then his warm hands on her shoulders, but she still felt left out. Sora had taken her place in her family while she was gone. And now, in this terrible time, she wished she was the one to be wrapped in her mother’s embrace and comforting her father. Instead, Sora was doing all those things. Last night, he had even comforted her boyfriend of all people. 

Kairi stabbed her fork through a wad of scrambled egg and cut her eyes up at Riku’s face. He was looking down at her and gingerly kissed her forehead. Sora didn’t even notice. He still had his arms around Deirdre’s thin frail body and his face buried into her shoulder like a small child. Deirdre seemed to relish this and was gently rubbing his back. 

“Kairi, why don’t we go for a walk on the beach?” Riku asked gently as if sensing her thoughts. 

She nodded and stood up from the table. Silently, Riku took her hand, bottled her into his bomber jacket, and guided her out the door into the cool morning. The door closed over softly, but the sight of the bloodied fence was a silent scream that immediately drew Kairi’s attention. Riku quickly jerked her away and led her down the street. 

…

Back in the Blackheart house, Deirdre pulled away from Sora and gently cupped his face in her warm hands. “Sora,” she murmured. 

“Yes?”

“Do you miss being with my daughter?”

Sora lowered his eyes. “In my own way, but she’s happy with Riku and I’ve talked to him. He’s a nice guy. You don’t have to worry about her, Deirdre,” he explained.

“Sora, in confidence, may I ask you something?”

He hesitated, but did finally nod. 

“Would you ever have loved Namine?”

Sora met her eyes and slowly shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, but she was like a sister to me. Just a sister,” he murmured. “I have always loved just Kairi.”

They were both quiet for a moment, wordlessly touching. Deirdre was still holding his face and Sora had his arms around her back. 

“Why would you ask me that?”

Deirdre sniffled. “You know that no one killed Namine.”

“Yes…” Immediately, he knew where this was going, but he choked on the words. 

“You know it wasn’t an accident, either.”

Sora bit his lip.

“Rick got up because he heard crying. He heard Namine crying in the night and he got up to check on her. She was standing in the window, standing there on the sill. When he opened her door, she looked back at him, looked right into her father’s eyes and whispered your name. Then, do you know what she did?” Deirdre took a shuddering breath and her fingers felt like cold claws on his face. “She jumped out the window, Sora. She jumped.” Her dark eyes welled with tears. “My daughter jumped. She committed suicide, Sora, suicide!”

“Deirdre,” he began, but didn’t know what else to say. Finally, he whispered, “Are you blaming me?”

She shook her head, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. “No,” she whispered. “I know Namine didn’t love you. I just… I don’t know why she called your name before she jumped.”

“Did she really say my name?” Sora asked softly.

Surprisingly, Deirdre shook her head. “Actually, Rick said that she said, ‘He looks like Sora,’ and jumped.”

“Looks like me?” 

She nodded. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

Sora shook his head.

Deirdre lowered her hands from his face and hugged him tightly again. “Don’t worry, Sora,” she whispered. “I don’t blame you. I would never blame you. I know Namine loved you like a brother and you were always there for you. If anything, your presence had kept her from that edge.” 

Sora tightened his grip on her. “Did anyone know she was so close to the edge?”

Deirdre shook her head. “I never knew. She hid it so well…”

Rick came into the kitchen. He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, and face drawn. When he saw his wife and the boy who was almost his son hugging, eyes glowing with tears and sadness and clearly speaking of his beautiful dead daughter, he silently wrapped them both in his big strong arms. They both melted into him, but no one started to cry. Their hurt was past the point of tears.

…

The beach was beautiful and mostly deserted as it was so early. There was one young woman diving naked into the waves to swim against the current and a sailboat on the distant horizon with its white sails billowing like chained clouds. Riku was wandering a little ahead of her, gathering a few shells in his big hands. Kairi walked to the bent palm where she and Sora used to spend so much of their time and tenderly touched the trunk with her palm. Then, she clambered up into the trunk that was more like a bench. There, she sat and looked out at the waves. She saw Riku look back at her, but he continued walking along the beach and she was grateful for that. She didn’t want to share her pain just now. 

She thought about Namine, about her beautiful dead sister who had jumped from her bedroom window, who had committed suicide. She thought about some of their good times and some of the bad times as well. 

Like the summer Namine had gotten her first bikini and when she dove into the ocean, it swept the entire top up over her collarbones and she hadn’t noticed. So when she waded out of the ocean, her small breasts had been exposed to the entire volleyball match on the beach. It had been up to Kairi and Sora to swamp her in protective arms until her face cooled and she got her swimsuit safely pulled down. After that, Namine had returned to her safe one-pieces and never looked back. 

Or the night of her first dance when she had done her own hair in front of the mirror, threading it with all kinds of beautiful flowers. Then, she had slipped into her beautiful white silk dress with the pale pink embroidery. She had looked so beautiful that night, like a princess out of a fairytale, and she had come home blushing pink but refused to tell Kairi anything. With a lurch, Kairi realized she would never know what had happened the night of that dance. 

Namine was dead.

They would never share secrets again or fight or share clothes or stay up late laughing. They would never be able to blame each other for anything or talk about boys. Namine would never be her maid of honor when she got married. Namine would never become Aunt Namine or Granny. 

Namine was dead.

Her life was over.

Over…

Kairi wiped her misty eyes, but there was something there regardless. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, dabbing them hard, but the misty little shape remained. Then, the face and body took shape—a ghost. It was Namine, she realized. She was beautiful, but twisted. She was wearing her white nightdress and there was a ring of terrible wounds like black holes across her abdomen from where she had landed on the wrought-iron fence. Her face was streaked with exhaustion, eyes bruised, and face white pale. Silently, she stood in front of Kairi, staring through her as if she didn’t even see her. 

“I didn’t…” Namine whispered, eyes staring somewhere over Kairi’s head and remaining fixed there as if she saw something.

“Namine!” Kairi gasped out. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t…”

“You’re dead,” she whispered.

“I didn’t… I didn’t… I couldn’t… I didn’t…”

“You’re dead!”

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t commit it… I had to!”

“You’re dead, Namine!”

“I didn’t commit suicide…”

Kairi’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“He made me… He made me… I didn’t… I didn’t… I didn’t… He made me…”

“Who did?” Kairi whispered. Her throat burned as if she had swallowed a lit match and the words were like sand.

“The man… the one with Sora’s face… He made me… I didn’t… I had to!”

Kairi reached out, suddenly desperate to take her dead sister into her arms. But Namine was like mist. She was damp and cold and intangible. Kairi’s arms passed through Namine and then, sharply, her dead sister was gone, but her words remained.

‘The one with Sora’s face… He made me. I didn’t commit suicide. I had to!’

Then, Kairi remembered how Namine had been staring behind her head and whirled around. Standing on the boardwalk in a heavy coat was a handsome young man with tousled blonde hair and deep ocean-blue eyes. It was the mystery speaker from Namine’s funeral!

“Kairi?” Riku’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Is something wrong?”

She turned back to him. “Riku, do you see that man?”

“What man?”

She turned to point, but the boardwalk was empty as if another ghost had been standing there. She blinked and wondered if she had imagined both her sister and the young man on the boardwalk. “Nothing, I must have imagined it,” she said and stood from the bent trunk of the tree. “Let’s go back to the house.”

Riku looked at her, green eyes worried. “Are you sure?”

She nodded, but she wasn’t sure at all. Namine’s words kept coming back to her. _‘The one with Sora’s face… He made me. I didn’t commit suicide. The one with Sora’s face…’_

X X X

Oh, and I do not own “The Moon” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Questions, comments, concerns? 

You are all still bad reviewers! No excuses! Each chapter gets about one hundred hits but only two reviews! Come on, people, I know you have it in you to review! I write long chapters and post almost every day! Come on, I’m asking for a little feedback. Don’t make me get my umbrella…!


	7. Namine Blackheart: Pt II

Woohoo! 

You are all SO amazing! You got out a monstrous TEN reviews for the last chapter and it even got less hits than usual! You are amazing people! And everyone commented on my umbrella as a weapon! Apparently, I am a threat to National Security! I’m glad to see you’re all threatened by skinny little old me armed with an umbrella! Paranoid much, people? (Oh yes, I’m out to get you! Be afraid, be very afraid!)

Woohoo!

X X X

Hidden deep in the heart of the island, veiled by trees and years of secrets, the old house sat. The simple once-white paint had peeled off like rotted flesh to reveal the stone-bones beneath. A few of the windows were boarded up, but some were not. All were unbroken. Vagabonds and the ocean storms did not dare touch this place. The trees were black and scraggly, grass overgrown and tangled with creeping ivy, no wildflowers dared to show their faces, and the air was stale without a touch of the summer breeze. It was dark there were the decaying house lurked, filled with deep cool shadows that made the world beneath the thick boughs of the trees appear cloaked in perpetual night. 

Beneath the house, sulfurous air yawned and gaped. Heat seeped up through the ground, unbearable heat from a shaft of Hell itself. A few shadow-monsters lurked in the boughs and branches. Human-faced spiders dropped down, yellow eyes gleaming. From the attic window, a moon-white face looked out and then was gone. A scream came from somewhere—loud and shrill, a death-scream, of anguish and terror and torment.

The house and the pit sat in the gloom and waited… they waited.

…

Sora ducked out of the Blackheart home before Kairi and Riku came back from the beach. He left Rick and Deirdre wrapped safely in each other’s arms and promised to come back for dinner at the absolute latest. It was strange being such a close part to their family again—being expected for meals, having his coffee pre-prepared, and an offer of having his laundry done (which he politely declined because he didn’t want dear Deirdre seeing the crown pattern on his boxers and he had been doing his own laundry for years). 

He put on his helmet, mounted his motorcycle at the curb, kicked-started it, and roared away from the house. The warm morning air streamed into his face, enlivening him and helping to slough off the lingering effects of the night. He loved his motorcycle. He loved the wind in his face and the sun on his back and the occasional light rain on his skin, not so much the bugs in his teeth if he smiled too much, but he loved everything else. Sora almost had half a mind to just spend the day riding around, taking simple pleasure from his life, but something stopped him.

There was a single gated-drive on the entire island. The tall chain-link fence was rusted and sagging, threaded with veins of dead ivy, and posted with a big red ‘No Trespassing!’ sign. Standing in front of the fence was a young woman in a gauzy black sundress. Beneath her dress, she was wearing jeans and, over it, she had on a heavy black jacket and she had thick boots on her feet. She did not look like an Island Native and Sora had never seen her before which was strange because Sora knew everyone. She was just standing at the fence, fingers hooked in the links, staring into the deep gloom of the forest beyond the rusting barrier. 

Sora slowed his bike at the mouth of the old gravel drive, feet from the strange girl, and called out a small greeting. Up close, he realized she was much younger than she had appeared from a distance. She might have been eleven, maybe twelve, and at most thirteen. She had big baby-blue eyes, very sad and deep, and a lot of dark hair tucked under a knit black cap and small dove-like white hands with cuticles picked to the bloody quick.

“Hey,” Sora said with his warmest smile because she looked ready to turn into smoke and vanish at the slightest provocation. “You look a little young to be out here alone.”

“I’m fifteen,” she said softly.

Namine’s age, Sora realized with a start. Namine had looked young for her age as well.

“Can I give you a ride somewhere?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I won’t hurt you,” he insisted. 

She still shook her head, gripping the fence with one small hand. Behind her, the forest writhed and moaned in the summer wind. Sora’s heart skipped a beat and he had a sudden irrational fear that the darkness would leech through that fence, wrap her in its ugly arms, and take her away into the blackness. A gust of hot air touched them, stirring her black hair and whipping at his jeans. 

“Please, let me give you a ride somewhere,” Sora said once the wind had halted.

“You’re a stranger,” she said and turned to face him. She pulled her hat off and stuffed it into her coat pocket. Her hair was cut boyishly short, feathering around her face, and shadowing her blue eyes. “A beautiful stranger, but a stranger none the less.”

“My name is Sora Strife,” he said as if that would change her mind. 

She looked at him with those blue eyes as if shocked, was quiet for a moment, and then murmured, “I’m Xion.” The name sounded familiar, but Sora couldn’t remember where he’d heard it. Something must have shown on his face because she said softly, “I was a friend of Namine’s. You’re Namine’s brother, right?”

“Her brother?” Sora repeated. 

Xion nodded, pale face catching the morning light. “She spoke of you like her brother,” she murmured. “Aren’t you her brother?”

“No, actually…” He felt a little sheepish speaking these words aloud. “I’m her sister’s ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh,” she said and turned back to the fence again. 

“So, now that we’re not strangers, can I take you somewhere?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m waiting for someone,” she murmured.

“Who?”

“A friend…”

“What friend?”

“Namine’s friend…”

Sora wrinkled his brow. She didn’t seem particularly evasive, just… giving him bare-minimum answers. “Who?”

Xion turned again, blue eyes staring right through him, unfocused or maybe seeing something that he simply couldn’t. “It’s quiet now…” she whispered and her voice was small and weak. It sounded as if it was coming from very far away, over an ocean’s distance. “It’s quiet now. He came… he came from the blackness and… and killed! He wants to open… open the Gates…” she let out her breath in what was almost a sigh. “But… it’s quiet now,” she whispered. “It’s quiet now. It’s quiet now.” Then, her eyes cleared suddenly and she was looking right into Sora’s face. For one moment, she stared at him as if she had no idea who he was. Then, she smiled, but her eyes were still focused somewhere behind him. “Roxas,” she whispered.

Sora half-turned and found himself nearly face-to-face with the mysterious speaker at Namine’s funeral. As before, he still looked hauntingly beautiful with his barred blue eyes, pale blonde tresses, bruised face, bloodied cut throat, and scarred mouth. Only now, dressed in jeans and a pale t-shirt, the hidden injuries they had glimpsed beneath the sleeves of his suit coat were exposed. Well, not the injuries themselves, but the lengths of white bandages going from his wrists to his elbows. There was some blood seeping through the bandages, bright crimson on white.

“You spoke at Namine’s funeral,” Sora said quickly. 

Roxas’s eyes darted. “Yes, I did. She will be missed,” he said softly and reached out one hand for Xion. Eagerly, she took a hold of his fingers and stepped away from the fence. They were like damaged souls joining, injured hands meshing.

“How did you know Namine? I’ve never seen either of you,” Sora asked.

Xion answered softly, “We were her friends. We were helping her.” Her eyes were slightly out of focus, as if all the lights were on but no one was home.

“Helping her with what?”

“With—”

“Xion!” Roxas yanked her to his chest, but Sora saw him wince. Then, to Sora he said, “We have to go.” Tightly, he held Xion against him and the two of them hurried off into the morning light until they were gone around the bend of the road. 

They were headed towards the beach and, though they had definitely peaked his interest, Sora saw no real need to follow them. Silently, he kick-started his bike again and roared away down the road that flanked the beach. On his side, the black woods followed and he glimpsed the fence occasionally through the foliage. For some reason, even in the bright light of day, this unnerved him and he was suddenly in a great hurry to return to the Blackheart house. 

…

Kairi peeled Riku off of her hand when they came in the front door like a damp coat in the winter, foisting him off on her parents. Then, she quickly escaped into the backyard, into the already-withering realm of her dead sister’s beautiful garden. 

There, among the blossoms, there was a young man, maybe fifteen years old. He was wearing dark jeans and a black shirt and had a mop of raven locks that were feathered against the side of his face. When she closed the door, he turned and she saw that he had the most spectacular shade of gold for his eyes. When he saw her, he sent a small nervous smile. Her breath caught in her throat and she inhaled sharply. The shape of his face, his big eyes, the curl of his lips, the set of his jaw, the curve of his chin, his high cheekbones, and the sweep of his brow… He looked so much like Sora that they could have been twins save the difference in hair and eye color. 

_‘The one with Sora’s face…’_

“Hi,” he murmured and his voice had a small musical lilt to it.

“Um, hello,” Kairi said softly and went to his side. She could feel wonderful heat rolling off of his body in waves. “You’re warm,” she felt her mouth say. 

“Is it alright that I’m here? I’m a friend of Namine’s,” he asked.

“I didn’t see you at the funeral.”

He hesitated. “I… I couldn’t go.”

“Why?”

“Namine committed suicide because of me…”

“What?!” Kairi had been lulled into a nice daze by the heat of his body, but now she snapped abruptly out of it and stepped away from him. Her eyes were accusing, sharp spears drilling into him. “You what?! It was your fault?!”

Slowly, the young man nodded, golden eyes downcast. “We were… getting close…” His cheeks tinged cute pink regardless of the sadness and guilt that dominated his handsome face. “She wanted to go all the way with me, her first time, but I said ‘no’ because I wanted to wait until marriage. She ran away from me and she seemed really upset. Then, that night, she died. It must have been me. It must have been my fault!” His golden eyes welled up with tears that threatened to quickly spill over. 

Wordlessly, Kairi reached out and touched his shoulder. He was another one… another person who had loved her sister… another person Kairi didn’t know about because she hadn’t been here, just like the boy who had spoken at the funeral. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said softly. “No one knows why she did it, but it wasn’t your fault.”

He sniffled, wiping his nose with the back of his hand in a sweet childlike manner that made Kairi want to embrace him tightly. “You really think so?”

She smiled. “Yes. Why don’t you come in and meet everyone?”

“I couldn’t!” he said sharply and clearly still harbored the belief that her sister’s death had been his fault. “I mean, it was me…”

“It’s not your fault,” Kairi repeated.

Slowly, he nodded and allowed her to lead him into her parents’ house. As she entered the backdoor, Sora came in the front and for a long moment they both just stared at each other. They were so mirror-like that Kairi half expected to see endless duplications of them going on and on in either directions. Caught between them, Deirdre, Rick, and Riku looked back and forth between the two young men like people caught watching a tennis match. 

Rick’s mind rushed back to the name Namine had spoken before she jumped—Sora’s name… the one with Sora’s face. Had Sora had more to do with his daughter’s death than met the eye? Rick’s eyes narrowed fiercely, but he put up a front. “Kairi, who’s your friend?”

“This was Namine’s boyfriend,” she said with a small sad smile. 

Deirdre made a sharp sound and turned away with her hands pressed to her face, but everyone else looked expectantly at the dark-haired young man. The young man appeared ready to bolt at any given moment, fleeing from the blame he had placed on himself. 

“I…” he hesitated. “I am Kale,” he said softly. 

“Kale,” Kairi repeated, still smiling. The heat was rolling off his body in waves and it was intoxicating. She felt giddy and sleepy and the floor shifted beneath her feet. Then, little spots began to dance in her vision, clouding it and she wiped her eyes feebly. The spots remained and she swayed on her feet. 

Abruptly, like a felled tree, she crashed to the floor. 

Before the darkness took her completely, she saw her beautiful dead sister against a backdrop of pure blackness in her favorite white sundress. She practically glowed, like some kind of angel misplaced on the steps descending down into the furthest reaches of Hell. She was reaching out one white hand as if to grab Kairi and her face was filled with distress, fear, and anguish. “No! Don’t!” she screamed. “Kairi, don’t! No, don’t! Kale is—!”

“Namine,” Kairi whispered. “Don’t worry… I won’t steal your… boyfriend…”

“No, don’t!” Namine’s voice echoed through the blackness long after Kairi’s eyes were closed.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

FEAR THE UMBRELLA!


	8. The Mysterious Kale

Just to let everyone know, my updates may get a little less than every day—maybe every other day—because I have a crisis going on and I’m not too sure where my life will belong until it’s all over. I’ll write when I can, but like I said probably not every day again until at least Wednesday. So, hang in there, everybody.

X X X

After Kairi fainted, Riku and Kale dove for her. For one heart-stopping moment, Sora thought he was seeing a darker version of himself steal her from Riku’s arms, but Riku was just a second faster and caught Kairi before so much as a hair on her head hit the floor. His dragon-green eyes flashed up at Kale as if sorting him out, trying to decide whether he had dove for Kairi out of reflexive concern or if he was intending to steal Kairi away from him. Sora never knew what Riku decided because Kale backed quickly up and Riku carried Kairi to lay down in her bedroom, leaving strange Kale, Rick with his eyes narrowed, Deirdre with her pale white hands clasped to her chest, and Sora standing in the still-open threshold of the front door. 

Sora was the first one to break out of his stupor and move by shutting the door tightly. Then, he approached Kale and stared into his face for a long moment. Finally, putting his natural best foot forward, Sora said, “Hello. I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Sora Strife and you said you were Namine’s boyfriend?”

“Yes,” Kale said. “Namine spoke of you often. It’s nice to finally meet you.” He shook Sora’s offered hand, recognizing the strong grip with a faint uneasy smile.

Deirdre sucked in a breath at the sound of her dead daughter’s name and Rick’s dark eyes narrowed even further. 

Kale turned to face Namine’s parents and those golden eyes of his were unfathomably dark and sad. He clenched his long white fingers together, nervous. “I’m sorry we couldn’t meet under different circumstances. Namine always wanted me to meet you, but I was… afraid,” he confessed. “Knowing what would happen, I wish I had met you sooner.” His golden eyes filled with big tears that ran down his smooth white cheeks. 

Deirdre sniffled and opened her arms. Her heart was as soft and supple as fine moist clay. “Come here, honey,” she said to Kale and they carefully embraced with that closeness of people who knew the same pain, the same broken heartedness. “Why don’t you go up to her room, sweetie?” Deirdre whispered into his dark tousled hair. “You didn’t come to the funeral. You didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Kale pulled away from her and his eyes flashed with sorrow. “Could I?” he whispered.

“Of course,” Deirdre said and smiled through her tears. 

Kale smiled back at her and his teeth were so white, so perfect.

…

Rick caught Sora by the shoulder and said, “Can I speak with you in the kitchen?” 

Sora nodded, confused by the fierceness in Rick’s voice, and the two of them carefully inched around Deirdre and Kale. The kitchen, which was usually so comforting, was painted blood-red by the rising sun. It was still so early. The day had barely begun and already the hurt was heavy in the Blackheart house.

“Who is that young man?” Rick snapped at Sora.

Even more confused, Sora said, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before and I don’t remember Namine ever mentioning his name to me.”

Rick’s brow wrinkled. “You talked to Nam—” he stumbled over her name “—you talk to her about boys?”

Sora nodded. “Yes. Namine and I were pretty close. We had art together and we talked a lot then,” he confessed. “You didn’t know that I was still close with her, even after Kairi left?”

Rick lowered his eyes. “Sora, I must confess to you, when she… jumped, she said something to me.”

“I know. Deirdre told me. She said, ‘He looks like Sora.’” Sora touched his cheeks, his brow bones, his eyelids, his chin as if they had changed since he had last looked at his reflection. “I think that person may have been Kale.”

“But…” 

Rick’s eyes darted nervously and Sora immediately knew why. With Namine’s final words, Rick had been given someone to blame and that someone had—for a small moment—been Sora. Human beings were funny creatures. They needed that. They needed something to love, and to protect, and to hate, but most of all they needed someone to blame. Rick had blamed Sora for Namine’s death, thinking the boy who was like a son to him had even unwittingly led to his daughter’s suicide had been a welcome relief to blaming himself, to wondering what on earth he had done to cause Namine to want to take her own life. 

“It’s okay, Rick,” Sora said softly and patted the older man on the shoulder. “I understand and it’s okay.”

Rick smiled through oncoming tears. “You’re such a good kid, Sora. I wonder…” he hesitated. “I wonder if she wouldn’t have died if she had been with you.”

Sora lowered his sky-blue orbs, taking in the red-painted walls. The light had turned pinkish, lighter, and softer, less terrible and bloody-looking. “Don’t wonder that,” he whispered. “I loved her like a sister and she thought of me as her brother. Besides, we were close and I never even knew she had been planning to die. It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

“But…”

“No, Rick,” Sora said firmly. “It would have made any difference. I don’t think it was anyone’s fault.” He said anyone with startling conviction, banishing any of Rick’s self-blame.   
Silently, Namine’s father hugged him and Sora could feel his chest gasping for breath as he tried not to cry. Gently, he pushed Rick away and offered a small smile. “I’m going to go upstairs and see how Kairi is. Why don’t you make some coffee and we can all talk in a little bit?”

“With Kale?”

Sora inclined his head.

Rick stared at him for a long moment and then slowly nodded. “Yes,” he whispered. “That’s a good idea.” 

…

Sora poked his head into Kairi’s room and saw that Riku had comfortably seated himself in Kairi’s desk chair at her bedside. He looked bored, staring at his hands as if contemplating twiddling his thumbs to pass the time. Sora waited a moment, hoping Riku would see him, but no such luck. He called out a greeting and Riku jolted as if struck, startled. 

“Damn it, Sora! You’re like a ghost!” Riku snapped and pressed a hand over his heart in an incredibly dramatic fashion.

Sora grinned. “Didn’t you know I’m the Great Ninja Sora?”

Riku rolled his eyes.

Sora came to stand beside Kairi’s new boyfriend and looked down at Kairi’s sleeping face. “How is she?”

“She fainted.”

“Does she do that often?”

Riku rolled his shoulders. “Don’t most girls?”

“No and the Kairi I knew had an iron constitution,” Sora said. 

Riku looked up at him sharply. “She’s not a knight! She’s a model in the city. Models are not people of iron constitution. They’re more…” he searched for the words. “They’re more like delicate flowers or bisque dolls or… or…” he struggled again. “Kittens…?”

Sora chuckled at Riku’s expense, watching as the other boy turned pink.

Silently, they both stared at Kairi’s sleeping face and Riku let out a heavy sigh. 

“Sora, are you angry seeing me with Kairi?”

He shook his head. “Why would you ask me that?”

“I see the way you look at us. You look like you miss her.”

Sora closed his eyes, fighting himself. Finally, he confessed, “I do, but I would rather see her happy and she is happy. She’s happy with you.”

Riku looked up at Sora, curious. 

Sora smiled softly. “Now, if you were a dickhead, I would waste no time in trying to steal her back from you, but…” he glanced at the door. “I don’t think Kairi and I were ever really meant to be together. Since we were kids, she planned on leaving the islands and I,” he sighed and gazed out her window at the distant sea. “I never wanted to leave. I love the islands, the sea, the sand, the air. I need to be here, to stay here. It’s a part of me, so much a part of me that I would be lost without it, and I feel like I’m,” he hesitated, “waiting for something.” 

The child’s voice again, softly, brokenly—‘Mom? Dad? Where are you?’

Sora sighed heavily and continued, “Even if Kairi had asked me to go with her, I wouldn’t have been able to go. You are already a part of the city and you’re what she always wanted.”

“What she always wanted?”

Sora nodded. “Yeah,” he said softly. “You’re a big dumb jock with great hair, some seriousness, and a killer smile. You’re the stereotypical heartthrob.”

Riku wrinkled his brow. “Should I take offence to anything you just said?” he asked with only half-seriousness. 

“No,” Sora said with a smile. “Really, Riku, I’m glad Kairi’s happy with you. No hard feelings, okay?”

Riku smiled up at him from his seated position. “Yeah. No hard feelings.”

Sora looked down at Kairi, smoothed the blankets across her legs absently, and then turned to leave the bedroom. 

“Sora,” Riku called, stopping him in the threshold. 

“Yeah?”

“Let’s be friends?”

“Sure.” Sora was smiling again and he had such a nice easy smile that Riku wanted to smile back. “It might be a while before she wakes up. She doesn’t think I know, but Namine told me that Kairi saved some of her favorite children’s books in one of those desk drawers if you’re interested.”

“Thanks Sora.”

…

When Kairi woke up, Riku was sitting at her bedside, reading one of the many children’s books Kairi had left behind on her half-emptied desk when she moved to the city, rather than staring eagerly into her pale face. From his relaxed posture and the stack of already read books on her nightstand, she concluded that she had either been out a while or she had simply passed out and her family was unconcerned. Outside the window, it was sunny and bright, which didn’t tell her much because it was usually sunny on the island. Groaning, she alerted Riku that she was awake. 

“Hey, Kairi, how’re you feeling?” Riku asked and set the book aside. 

“Like I got hit by a bus. What happened? The last thing I remember is… Kale!” She sat bolt upright sharply in her childhood bed and glanced around the room. 

“Calm down, Kairi. I think you should take it easy for a minute. Kale agreed to stay for lunch. He’s in Namine’s room right now, saying goodbye.”

“Goodbye?”

“To Namine. He didn’t come to the funeral, remember?”

“Oh,” she said and stared hard at the half-open door. Her brain felt foggy and she couldn’t piece thoughts together. The only thing she could clearly recall was Kale’s face… Sora’s face… but after that, even though she sensed something important lingered just below the surface, she couldn’t remember what it was. She was thinking about how hot Kale’s body had felt beside hers, the heat rolling off of him in waves and those golden burning eyes.

…

Sora knocked lightly on Namine’s bedroom door, but didn’t wait for an invitation in. He pushed open the white door and stepped into her light-flooded room. Kale was standing at Namine’s bookshelf, looking very much like a deep black stain among all Namine’s cloudy whiteness, and he had a small pink book in his hands with a plain worn cover and a woven ribbon as a bookmark. When he saw Sora, he shoved it hastily back onto the shelf.

“Bad reading?” Sora asked. 

Kale lowered his eyes. “I gave it to her,” he murmured. 

“What is it?” Sora asked and wandered to Namine’s desk. 

Kale hesitated, biting his lip. “Twilight,” he said. 

Sora wrinkled his brow. He knew for a fact that Namine hated that entire series. She thought Edward was a stalker and Bella was epically useless. There was no way she had told Kale that her favorite book was Twilight even if he had told her that he loved it. 

Kale realized that he had made a terrible mistake as Sora stepped away from the desk and paced quickly to the bookshelf. He took down the little pink book, opened it, and wordlessly flipped through a few pages. This was Namine’s diary!

“Why were you looking through this?” Sora asked. He wasn’t angry or assuming anything, not yet… “This is Namine’s diary.”

“I-I-I-I just wanted to see if she had written anything about me, if it was my fault she committed suicide. I just feel so guilty. I had to know if it was my fault.”

_‘The one with Sora’s face…’_

Sora quickly paged to the last entry and was shocked to find the entire page blacked out with heavy acrylic paint. In the midst of all that black, Namine had scrawled a single hideous word in red—Kale. Sora didn’t know what it meant exactly and he didn’t want Kale to see it when he clearly hadn’t so he snapped the tome shut and tucked it under his arm. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said softly.

“Really?” Kale didn’t look all that eager or believing.

“Yes. It’s not your fault,” Sora said. “Now, come on, Deirdre is making grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch and it’s about ready.”

“But—”

“Come on. The Blackhearts are wonderful people. You have nothing to worry about, Kale,” Sora said. To himself, he added, Rick wants to blame me, not you anyway. He felt Kale’s eyes on his back as he tucked Namine’s diary back onto the bookshelf and it didn’t feel like a friendly gaze. When Sora turned to look at Kale, the younger man had averted his gaze to Namine’s desk. 

Either way, it was then that the first small seed of suspicion had been planted in Sora’s mind. 

There was something strange and sneaky about Kale. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy Namine would date or even like and he didn’t seem to know her well enough to be her boyfriend. Namine hated Twilight, yet she was close with Sora and Sora had no idea where she kept her diary and Kale did. 

Something just wasn’t adding up here. 

…

They had a nice quiet lunch, a small broken family of strangers clustered around the big table. Rick and Deirdre were elbow to elbow with Kale captured across from them, trapped like a rat in their gazes. Sora was at the head of the table beside Rick while Riku sat at the head directly across from Sora. Kairi was beside Kale, intoxicated by the heat of his body. Occasionally, Rick asked Kale something about Namine, but his eyes welled up and he couldn’t bear to hear the answer. Finally, Kale left the way he came—out the back door, through Namine’s decaying garden, and into the hot island day—and the Blackheart home was back down to its trusted minimum.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	9. A Cry in the Night

I don’t really have anything to say. Maybe my cat snores and she’s keeping me up. She snores like a mom in a cartoon, you know *snoor wee wee wee wee* Grr…

X X X

The beach was beautiful, deserted, and full of sunlight. Xion gently pushed Roxas down into hot golden sand, feeling the damage to him as pain broke through his white-pale masked face, and knelt quickly in front of him. The sound of the ocean drowned out even the raging sound of her heartbeat. She touched the slash across his throat with careful fingers, watching the dried blood flake off beneath her touch and the pain in his blue eyes. A long moment of comfortable safe silence stretched between them, broken only by Roxas’s heavy breath and the wash of the ocean waves on the sand.

Finally, she whispered, “How much of you hurts?” 

“Everything,” he murmured and pushed her fingers away from his injured throat. Even though it hurt to have her touch him, he relished even her warm hurtful fingers. “I’m missing a bunch of flesh on my chest.” He hesitated, looking into Xion’s eyes. Softly, he whispered, “They skinned me, Xion.”

Xion sucked in her breath, carefully hooked her fingers in the neck of his shirt, and peered down into it. “Oh, Roxas,” she whispered, “Oww…”

“I’m alright.” He pushed her hands away again, weakly. “He’s been taking care of me.”

She lowered her blue eyes and stirred her fingers through the golden sand beside her knee. She was quiet for a moment, soaking up the endless rays of golden sun that beat down on her back and absorbed into her night-black clothing. “Roxas, he’s not your brother anymore,” she whispered suddenly.

Roxas jolted as if she had struck him, wincing in pain. “But he is!” he protested sharply and grabbed Xion by her shoulder. He dug his fingers into her flesh and he felt like ice, frozen, dying, dead. 

She easily pulled away as his grip was weak, catching his icy-cold hand in her own warm grasp “He’s not,” she insisted gently. “And they’re just using you to keep that monster in him under their control. If you stopped holding onto him, their little monster would destroy them.”

“He’s my brother,” Roxas said firmly and tried to pull away from her, but she was strong enough to hold him. Even so, she allowed him to pull away from her, to feel powerful. For a moment, she gave him that.

Then, Xion took his shoulders tightly in her small hands. “Roxas, Namine is dead,” she said softly. “You know why.”

He tried to pull away from her, wincing. A single drop of blood welled at his cut throat and rolled down beneath the neck of his t-shirt. Quickly, Xion let him go before he could hurt himself further. He hugged himself tightly, both arms around his narrow chest and heaving shoulders. His eyes were full of pain. 

“Roxas,” she insisted, voice sharp.

“I know, but—”

“No! We have to do it! Namine is dead! There’s no one else to do it!” She glowered at him with intense seriousness. “You know what will happen if the Gates are opened…”

He lowered his eyes and nodded slightly. “I know, Xion, I know,” he whispered and took her warm hands in his own icy-cold ones. He missed warmth. He was always cold anymore, body dying around him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been warm. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time his body had been whole and undamaged. A shudder wracked him, sending pain from his skinned chest to every nerve-ending in his hands. He bit his lip to contain his sound of pain and waited for a moment to pass. As always, it did, though not quickly.

Roxas looked up into Xion’s softly tanned face, wondering why her warm hands had suddenly gone limp in his own, and saw that her ocean-blue wine-dark eyes were glazed. She was gone again. Silently, he waited for her to come around, listening eagerly for anything she was going to say, but she didn’t say anything. It was like she was dead.

“What?” The voice came suddenly from behind them. 

Roxas turned sharply, looking up into the face of his likeness, into those eyes that had once been blue were deep fiery gold. Roxas desperately wanted Xion to wake from her trance. He didn’t want to go back to that basement, that table, those restraints, that horrible pain, and the endless darkness. 

“It’s loud now,” Xion whispered, but Roxas didn’t hear her. His heartbeat was too thunderous in his ears. “It’s loud now…”

…

In the attic of the Blackheart house, Vanitas slammed his fist into the wall and shouted, “Goddamn it!” Sora Strife had gotten Namine’s diary, had snatched it right out from underneath him. One thing that Namine had gained from her hideous horrible friends—Xion and Roxas and Roxas’s stolen likeness when he happened to be free—was the way she meticulously catalogued everything he did to her—every torment, every word, every touch, every nightmare—in that little tome. (Not that any of them had ever known that he was reading it over her shoulder. One step ahead of every plan they concocted, every escape they tried, every scheme, every wish, everything.) If Sora read it, everything would come to light. 

And light was not a place a shadow creature like Vanitas belonged. 

Grinding his sharp broken-glass teeth angrily, relishing the tearing and screaming sound the hell-teeth made, Vanitas reached into the shadows and called forth his powers. It was a struggle. He was still so weak, so fucking weak! All thanks to that bitch Mayu Blackheart who had imprisoned him in that cave, trapped in the power of her sigil. Over the centuries he had been imprisoned, the darkness of the island had been using him like a battery, leeching his powers from him. He gained strength each time he killed someone, but even after driving Namine to her death, it was a struggle to so much as call upon his powers. 

With great struggle and effort, he melted his shadowy face and shifted painstakingly into the one with Sora’s face—Kale.

…

Night was falling swiftly and the laughter was dying out in the kitchen. Riku had suggested they all play Monopoly and the game had lasted all day—a small happiness in the midst of the darkness of grief—but with the descending curtain of night, the sadness came back with it. Rick and Deirdre went to bed early, exhausted, and even closed their door tightly. Riku went to shower, leaving Sora alone with Kairi. Kairi had thought her first real words with her old flame would’ve been incredibly awkward, but Sora—to his credit—was impossibly light and smiling as he helped her clean up the board game. 

“Kai,” he ventured and her old nickname slipped off his lips as if she had never left. “How are you holding up?”

As before, she would never lie to him. If he asked her, she would always tell him the truth. “I feel bad. I left and I never even called my sister. I mean, you were closer with her than I was at the end there and I wonder if I ever would have come back here if not for… this,” she said and passed him the wad of ones. 

Sora put them into the bank tray and said softly, “I could never have taken your place. I’m not a sister and I never will be.” He gave her a small soft smile and Kairi remembered how beautiful he was, how sweet, how tender. 

She ventured a small laugh and felt her eyes sliding to his full soft pink lips. For a moment, she fantasized about leaning over and kissing him. There was a soft voice in her ear, in her head, and a gust of cold air on the back of her neck. 

“Go ahead,” the voice crooned. “Kiss him. Take him into your mouth. Devour him.”

“Sora,” Kairi breathed and her twilight-colored eyes glazed over. She was so focused on Sora’s mouth, on his lips moving as he spoke her name a few times, on the lusciousness of him. Then, she leaned in as if passing out and Sora gripped her shoulders quickly to support her. She felt his breath on her face as he called out her name with just an edge of worry in his sexy voice. 

“Go ahead,” the voice continued. “Kiss him. You know how he will taste—different from Riku, more exotic. He tastes like sun and sea, you know that. You love his taste. You miss his lips, his tongue, his white teeth. Go ahead. Just take him. Devour him.”

She pushed forward towards Sora, but he jerked his head back. “Don’t! What are you thinking?!”

Riku appeared in the threshold of the doorway, toweling his silver hair dry. He might have shouted at Sora if the younger boy hadn’t looked so desperate and frantically holding Kairi back by her narrow shoulders. Instead, Riku rushed to Sora’s side and yanked Kairi back from him. 

Sora leaped to his feet and put a good bit of distance between himself and Riku as if unsure whether or not Riku was going to lunge at him. “Riku! This isn’t—! I don’t know what she was thinking!”

“I know, Sora,” Riku said and then turned to Kairi. “I know you’re upset, Kairi, but you can’t cheat on me. That is not okay.”

The voice stopped abruptly. 

“Huh?” Kairi said. 

Riku was glaring into her face and Sora was halfway across the room, looking distressed. His blue eyes were so wide they looked as if they would pop out of his skull.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You tried to kiss Sora,” Riku said flatly. 

“What?” she said, but she did remember dimly thinking about his soft lips and leaning in to kiss him. Devour him… “I did? Did I?”

“Kairi, I know you’re distressed and hurt and that Sora is an old friend, but you cannot cheat on me. Okay?”

“Yeah,” she said and wrapped her arms around Riku’s shoulders. She stared at Sora unsure of what had come over her. 

“Come on,” Riku said. “Let’s get you to bed. Sora, are you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” Sora forced out. 

Kairi was still absently nodding. She allowed Riku to lift her from the chair in his strong arms and carry her to bed. He snuggled up beside her, holding her tightly in his strong arms, and stroking her hair gently. He was whispering sweet nothings to her, but Kairi couldn’t hear him over the voice in her head.

“You were so close. You could have had him. You could have him tonight. Get out of bed, pretty Kairi. Just leave Riku. Go to Sora. He’s right downstairs, lying on the sofa, ripe for you. You could have him. You could kiss him. Devour him, sweet pretty Kairi.”

She closed her eyes tightly.

…

Sora wanted to go upstairs and fetch Namine’s diary, but Kairi’s sudden advance on him had rattled his nerves. 

Suddenly exhausted, he stripped out of his jeans, changing into light cotton pajamas, and flopped down on the couch. He was too hot for the thick afghan Deirdre had put out for him, so he just lay there in the faint moonlight—shirtless and slender. He put his arm over his eyes and tried to breathe. As much as he hated to admit it, he had wanted Kairi to kiss him. He may have told Riku that he had no hard feelings and that was true, but he did desire Kairi. He wanted her back. With those thoughts whirling in his head, he dozed lightly. 

…

Devour him…

There was a lot of moonlight, white clothing strewn across the floor, and white silk sheets. It looked like a wedding night, beautiful, serene, still. There was a soft sound, almost like a cry, a small whimper, and the endless light took on darkness. Each little shadow trapped in the light shifted and pooled until they came together to for a single hideous malformed shape. Slinking through the shadowless lightless room, the monster took form and shape. 

Kale was standing there. His lips pulled back to reveal teeth like countless layers of broken glass. His gold eyes glowed like those of a jack-o-lantern, casting a sick yellow light over the white sheets, white clothes, and moonlight. 

There was no more beauty in the room. It was not peaceful or serene or loving anymore. 

Slowly, Kale stripped himself of shadows to reveal white flesh beneath that was as unmarked as porcelain. His body smoldered with unnatural heat that rolled off of him in waves. Silently, he approached the bed and reached out, caressing the sheets. He glanced back with those yellow eyes, casting more deep shadows that only rose and slithered towards him. Then, Kale fisted both hands in the sheets and yanked them off the bed so that they flew like ghosts shrieking from a coffin and were devoured by the encroaching darkness.   
Lying on the white silk sheets, wrapped in moonlight, was beautiful Sora. He was naked already, untouched, virginal, so pure and white. 

Soundlessly, like a cat on the prowl, Kale reached out with his hands and they looked like cold ugly claws. Without batting an eyelash, he raked his nails down Sora’s unmarked chest, tearing up the flesh so that hot blood welled up in the thick trenches. 

Sora’s mouth opened, but only that small keening sound escaped. 

Kale pressed flush against Sora’s damaged chest, smearing the blood on his own white flesh. Then, he put his teeth to Sora’s throat and said plainly, “Devour him.” Then, with the sound of ripe flesh yielding to pain and a small whimper of anguish, there was an arc of endless blood from Sora’s torn jugular vein.

Devour him!

…

Something skittered on Sora’s bare chest, waking him from his light slumber. He slapped his hand down over the offending touch, groaned at being wakened, and found the remains of a black spider crushed against his palm. The spindly legs twitched and squirmed against his palm. He squinted at them in the faint silver moonlight, disgusted, and wiped his hand on his pajama pants. Sora rolled over on the couch, content to go back to sleep until late in the morning. He was exhausted from the stress and from thinking so much about Kairi.

Behind his head, the face of the grandfather clock caught the moonlight. ‘The moon has a face like the clock in the hall. She shines on thieves on the garden wall…’ 

Upstairs, Kairi let out a bloodcurdling scream. 

Apparently, the moon had been shining on the thief, but he had stolen into the house anyway. 

Sora bolted to his feet and took the stairs two at a time. He ran into Rick in the hall and Rick looked so haunted, surely remembering getting up just the other night and seeing his precious Namine jump from her window to her death on the fence below. Behind him, Deirdre was clutching the doorway and her dark eyes were like black mirrors sucking up the light. She said something, but no sound escaped her. Sora reached Kairi’s bedroom door first and threw it open so violently that is crashed into the wall. 

Kairi was sitting up in bed and there was a lot of darkness touching her, holding her, wrapped around her face and chest and arms. She turned to Sora and her father who was only a step behind him and screamed, “Help me! Oh, God, help! He’s bleeding!”

“What?” Sora heard Rick say even as he reached Kairi’s side. 

Kairi had both her small white hands pressed to Riku’s throat, but there was a terrible amount of blood coursing between her fingers. Desperately, she gazed up at Sora and there was darkness on her face and neck, hiding her expression save the fear in her eyes. He didn’t have time to think about it because Rick was suddenly beside him. 

“Call an ambulance!” Sora shouted at Rick. 

Deirdre was frozen in the doorway, staring at the window as if she saw Namine’s birdlike ghost preparing to jump. Rick’s eyes were full of tears and he ran to call his second ambulance in the middle of the night of the week. 

“Keep pressure on it,” Sora said to Kairi and put his hands down over hers. 

Riku’s dragon eyes were staring desperately up at Sora and he weakly clutched Sora’s arm. 

“It’s okay, Riku. You’re going to be okay.” He turned to Kairi. “How did this happen?” He wasn’t shouting, but she winced and tried to lift her hands. He pressed down harder over them and glanced over at her. There was a lot of blood on her face, on her mouth, and her twilight eyes were full of tears that streamed down her face. Light came through the darkness on her skin.

“Oh God,” Kairi whispered, half-sobbing. “He’s bleeding. He’s bleeding.”

“Keep pressure on it,” Sora repeated and pressed harder on her cold hands. Riku’s hot blood seeped out between their fingers regardless. In the distance, the screaming of the ambulance sirens could be heard and it was the most wonderful of all sounds save a strongly beating heart.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	10. A Hospital of Nightmare Creatures

I wrote out two chapters, but FanFiction wouldn’t let me post. It gave me errors all day and is still giving me errors! Like I said, I will post when I am permitted by the dumb site. So, I’m watching Silent Hill on television and they’re cutting out all the good violent gross parts!

X X X

Sora hated hospitals, but he didn’t know why. It was almost as if he couldn’t remember and the reason lingered just out of reach, caught in the shadows. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Silently, he was seated beside Kairi in the waiting room. She had her knees drawn up to her chest, arms tightly wrapped around her bare legs, and sobbing heartbrokenly into her knees. Rick and Deirdre were buying some coffee across the street and they were alone in the blinding whiteness.

Sora shivered, running his hands over his bare shoulders and looking at Riku’s blood staining all of his skin—his hands, his chest, his face. He hadn’t been covered in blood in a long time—breaking off again, the memory just out of reach, dead and gone—‘Mom? Dad? Where are you?’ Sora shook himself and rubbed his face fiercely. 

Kairi’s sobbing was endless. 

“Kai,” Sora whispered and his voice felt so loud in the dead-silence of the hospital. “What happened?”

She sniffled, tightened her grip on herself, and did not answer. 

“Kairi, you’re going to have to tell someone eventually,” Sora insisted. He should have cared that he was hurting the girl he used to love, but for some reason… he didn’t. He just wanted to stop thinking about whatever it was about hospitals that he didn’t like. “What happened to Riku?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed desperately. “I woke up and he was… he was bleeding.”

“He was lying in bed between you and the wall and he was still there when I came in. There’s no way he could have done that to himself. There was no weapon, nothing sharp for him to use for him to slit his own throat. Now, tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know! Sora, I don’t know! Do you think I did that to him?” Her eyes were filled with tears and she shouted in his face. “Do you?!”

Sora stared into her anger, unblinking. “I know he didn’t do that to himself and I never said anything about you, but you were the only one in that room with him. Did someone come in through the window and do that to him?”

Kairi sniffled, hiding her face in her long-fingered hands. There was something guilty in her posture, in her tears. 

“Kairi?” Sora stared at her.

“I don’t know, Sora. I really don’t know…”

She didn’t tell him about her dream and he didn’t ask her again. He didn’t get a chance to. The doctor came out of the swinging doors, heart-wrenchingly bloody, glanced at them, and immediately marched towards them. 

“How’s Riku?” Kairi asked him, but he only half-answered her.

“He lost a lot of blood. Are either of you type O negative?”

“I am,” Sora said. 

“I need you to donate. We don’t have any on hand and Riku needs blood.”

“I understand,” Sora said and nodded.

The doctor looked over Sora’s blood-spattered shirtless pajama-clad body and nodded. “Good. Come with me,” he said to Sora and seized him by his skinny wrist. Sora didn’t even look back at Kairi as the doctor led him through the swinging doors and out of sight. Though he did hear her begin to cry again. 

There were a lot of shadows on the other side of the doors, deep cold shadows that almost clutched at his legs, but he was sure it was only his imagination. Silently, the doctor handed him off to two night-shift nurses who shuffled him into a chair, took out tubes and bags and a needle, and hooked him up. Sora watched his red blood begin to fill the bag, quickly because of his pounding heartbeat. After a moment, he began to feel drowsy. He leaded back in the chair and closed his sky-blue eyes. The darkness was like a blanket, cloaking him. 

_‘Mom? Dad? Where are you?’_

…

Roxas was chained, bound to the table, again. He was naked, wrists and ankles trapped in agony beneath the sickening ice-cold iron chains. The portion of his chest that had been skinned the night before hurt more than any wound he had ever felt before. He felt as if he could see his heart beating beneath the white bones of his ribs. When his brother had found him and Xion at the beach earlier that morning, he had dragged him home, back to the basement, back to his private ice-cold Hell. The shadows of the basement writhed with a life of their own, pulsing, taking shape and them melting back into the inky blackness. Mingling with the darkness on all sides of him, the assembly of black-clad people was chanting, bringing the shadows to life and turning the only thing Roxas really loved into a monster. Standing at the head of the table, looking down on him with those terrible yellow eyes, was his likeness, his precious brother.

“Ventus,” Roxas whimpered. “Ven, please, don’t.”

Wordlessly, his brother lifted the knife. It was beautiful curved and shining silver, like the fang of some long-dead mythical beast. The moonlight caught on it as it arched down at him. Roxas squeezed his eyes shut, but the blade barely nicked his shoulder, inches from his throat. 

“Ven, please, you’re hurting me. Please, don’t.”

Something was skittering up Roxas’s bare legs, making a path up his thighs and hips, and finally coming to a stop on his chest. Roxas kept his blue eyes closed. He already knew what it was, what hideous nightmare creature escaped from Hell. It was a revolting spider, jet-black and glossy, with a white humanoid face. The human-like mouth opened, revealing teeth like broken glass, and the intelligent beady little yellow eyes cast a sick pallid glow across Roxas’s skinned chest. 

Ventus leaned towards his twin brother, mouth opening, and his teeth were much like the spider’s—jagged, vicious, shattered, row after row of them in the endless cavern of his mouth. Past the teeth, a long tongue snaked out. It was mottled, black, and cut to pieces on those razor-sharp teeth. That horrible tongue touched the injury on Roxas’s shoulder where that knife had sliced him. Then, Ventus’s mouth fastened over the wound, drinking his brother’s blood eagerly.

Roxas squeezed his eyes shut, hating this more than anything. He wanted to die… He wanted this to stop. He wanted his body to stop being used. He wanted this to be over! “Ven, please, stop! Stop, stop!” Even as he begged, his voice left him, reducing him to nothing but soft whimpers that could barely be heard over the chanting. 

Ventus bit into his shoulder and the blood flowed faster than he could drink. Roxas felt his own hot blood running down his back and heard it begin to drip on the floor.

“Ven, please… Ven, stop… please, don’t… you’re hurting…”

The chanting stopped and Ventus’s mouth left Roxas’s wounded shoulder. He stared up into Ventus’s pale face and watched at those dim gold eyes flickered, turned as blue as Roxas’s own for a quick moment, and then blazed with the fires of Hell. 

The chanting assembly sucked in air and drew back. Then, one stepped forward, bowed lowly, and said in a powerful voice, “Please, oh great and powerful demon, release your powers! Use these mortal vessels to release your power! Use them!”

Ventus’s eyes flashed like lanterns, casting more shadows. Wordlessly, he plucked the human-faced spider form Roxas’s chest, stared at it, and without so much as a change in his expression he shoved it into his mouth and chewed deliberately. Cold tears leaked out of Roxas’s ocean-blue eyes and trailed down his face. The only sound in the room was that of his blood dripping on the concrete floor and the spider’s terrible little monster mewls as Ventus chewed it. 

Roxas’s precious brother was gone.

The demon had taken Ventus again. 

…

Xion threw herself at the heavy wooden door, clawed it, shrieked and screamed, but it held strong regardless. She could smell blood in the air, senses heightened by the complete lack of light in this horrible little room. She shouted for Roxas again and hurled her body at the door. She was bounced off like bee-bees on a Buick, tossed uselessly across the floor. Sobbing, she hugged her battered shoulders, but she had to face the facts. She was trapped here in this little room while they probably killed Roxas and his possessed brother opened the floodgates of Hell. 

Desperately, she struggled to her feet and halfheartedly threw herself at the door one final time. As before, it resisted her and remained closed. Xion dug her fingernails into the wood, whimpering as her nails broke and peeled back from her fingers. Even so, she continued to claw the door, trying to get out, trying to escape. 

Behind her, in the darkness, the hot breath of hell breathed sulfurous fumes on her. 

She whirled around, searching the flat sheet of black hopelessly. In the corner, a single pair of yellow eyes gleamed, staring at her, watching her. Xion shrank back, hugging herself and pressing against the door as if she could melt through it. Beside those eyes, a second set appeared, glowing like the flames of candles. There was a sound to her left, a little drooling eating noise, and she whirled only to face a third pair of gleaming eyes. 

And another and another and another…

Xion squeezed her own eyes shut, holding herself, sobbing. “Help me. Help me,” she whispered. “Please, help me.” 

Even though her eyes were closed, she still sensed them around her. The monster, the demons, the dark creatures. They were all getting out. The Gates of Hell were opening, but why? Herself, Roxas, and Namine had all taken the steps to try to close them and reenacted the seal on the monster posing behind Sora’s—Kale’s—handsome face. 

Why was this happening?

It shouldn’t be happening!

How could it have gone wrong?!

At her feet, the first creature touched her, digging into her jeans with its little claws. Screaming, she kicked it off and brought her foot down hard on its little body in the darkness. She heard it wail in agony, anguish, in death. She opened her eyes to a black room, empty of eyes and bare of the presence of creatures. Beneath her foot, she could feel the one she had crushed struggling and squirming. She had killed it, but she couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or a bad one.

“Roxas!” she shouted. “Namine!”

…

Deep in the darkness, deep in the woods, the old Blackheart house waited. It waited. 

…

Kale arrived at the hospital shortly after the doctor took Sora away. Kairi didn’t see him come in from the darkness outside. Rather, he seemed to simply appear outside the power doors. When he stepped into the white hospital, he squinted for a moment, blinded by the light. 

“Kale,” Kairi whispered. 

“I came as soon as I heard,” he murmured. His voice was molten, soft and deep. “What happened?”

And, just like that, the dream she couldn’t bear to tell Sora came spilling out of her. Sobbing, she confessed everything she had dreamed to Kale—his likeness leaning over Sora on that moon-white bed, clawing, bloody, biting white teeth, pressing naked flesh. She reached out and allowed Kale to hold her, to put his fingers through the blood-colored silk of her hair. He was heedless of a dried blood, Riku’s blood, covering her body and her face. The taste of his blood was still in Kairi’s mouth.

“Oh, Kale, I think I bit my boyfriend’s throat out in my sleep! I think I did that to him!” she sobbed.

Kale smiled, sick broken-glass teeth in his endless mouth, but Kairi only felt the heat of his body soaking into her. Slowly, she slipped into the deep arms of sleep. For a moment, she saw clashing behind her eyes—white and black, like a chiaroscuro painting. 

“You must stop him! He’s going to open the Gates!” The light said to her and she saw the illusion of a petal-pink mouth with straight white teeth. 

“Namine?” Kairi whispered in her sleep. 

As if burned, Kale released her from his hot arms, shoving her down into the chair she had been sitting in. Hissing, he turned and spoke to the nothingness behind him. “I will have you, you stupid girl. Nothing you or Mayu have done will stop me. It is my right to kill this family!” Kale found a pool of shadows in the waiting room and slipped into them, vanishing in the blackness just as Deirdre and Rick arrived with hot coffee to find their daughter asleep and Sora gone. 

…

Sora Strife’s parents were dead. They were dead! Dead, dead, dead! 

Why? Why were they dead?

There was nothing but blinding light and the distant sound of the ocean raging. Sora’s body felt cold and broken. His shoulders were dislocated and there was unbelievable weight on them. A monster was resting on his shoulders, forcing him down into Hell. If he had been able to open his eyes, he would have seen himself—displaced, disjointed—hanging on the harshly made cross like a too-young too-hurt Christ. He was crying, young sweet soft tears, innocent tears. 

He had only ever been told that his parents died at sea. 

They never told him how or why or what happened.

As he grew older, he thought to ask, but decided against it. What did it matter anyway? 

His parents were dead. Knowing what had happened wouldn’t bring them back.

How they died wasn’t important, he thought.

But it was… Oh, it was.

…

In another room in the hospital, his veins filled with Sora’s hot borrowed blood, Riku’s eyes fluttered open.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

Confused? Good. 

Next chapter I plan to reveal all. But… emphasis on plan.


	11. Namine Blackheart: Pt III

Okay, let me just toss out there that I personally am an atheist, but there are demons and such in here so alternately there has to be God. If you don’t like religion, then I suggest not reading further because God, angels, demons, and all that good stuff really comes into play in this chapter. If you don’t like, then don’t read. I don’t want any reviews saying ‘OMG, religion!’ 

Got it, people?!

X X X

A cult… It should have been plain and simple, but it wasn’t. 

Destiny Islands had been the hub of horror and Hell for centuries. Long before the fateful hell-hot night Mio and Mayu Blackheart summoned the demon Vanitas from his grave in Hell, long before Sora Strife’s parents died, before Kairi Blackheart had unwitting broken Mayu’s seal on the monster, before Namine Blackheart hurled her body onto the wrought-iron fence, before Roxas and Ventus were torn apart by the very thing that kept them together, before everything bad and dark that had happened…

Destiny Islands was a lovely place to live. It had been full of life and sunlight and laughter, families with children, and happy light-filled homes. The islands were prosperous, living off the sea and the land and the golden sun. The islanders used to worship God and all his glory. Then, the Disease came over them and it was greater and more terrible than the Ten Plagues of Egypt. 

With it came something even worse—disbelief, desperation, and death.

…

The first people to fight it were Sora Strife’s parents.

…

Sora woke with a start, heart thundering beneath the cage of his ribs. There was pale yellow sunlight streaking in between the slanting venetian blinds. A pink Scooby Doo Band-Aid had been smacked over the bend of his elbow, hiding the mark from the IV the night before. Silently, Sora creaked himself out of the chair he had passed out in and enjoyed the cacophony of snaps and cracks that slipped from his bones. Feeling like an old man, he went to the window and peeked through the blinds. 

Outside, the day was sunny and bright, cheerful and wonderful, as if nothing had happened.

Sora cracked his neck and stiffly stretched, sounding even more cracks and pops. Then, he stepped out of the room into the sluggish bustle of the hospital. He stopped a pretty nurse who looked tired enough to be just coming off the graveyard shift. “Could you direct me to Riku’s room? I need to speak with him.” There was no need to include Riku’s last name, thank God because Sora didn’t know it, since Destiny Islands was such a small place. 

The tired nurse shook her head. “No one can see him. He had to be sedated,” she told Sora.

“Sedated?”

“Yes. He woke up late last night and he was in a state of panic. He kept insisting that a monster had possessed his girlfriend and she had bitten his throat out.”

Sora felt the blood drain from his face and his skin grow icy with sweat. “That’s not possible, right?” he whispered, swallowed, and tried again. “Kairi couldn’t have done that, right?”

The nurse rolled her shoulders. “I suppose it’s possible,” she relented finally. “The wound itself was shallow and ragged, but Kairi Blackheart is a ninety-nine pound girl. It’s not feasible that she could have done that to him, a big and formidable man twice her size.” She looked at her watch. “My shift is over. I need to go home. I suggest you talk to the nurse on duty now.”

“I will,” Sora said. “Thank you.”

The nurse inclined her head to him, adjusted her purse on her shoulder, and walked away quickly down the hallway. Sora stood, staring after her stupidly, for a long moment. Now was not the time to lose his mind. He could tell he was going to need every ounce of cleverness and finesse that he possessed. He harshly shook himself. 

Riku… sedated, delusional and insisting Kairi had been the one who hurt him?

Kairi… possessed, having bitten his throat out?

What the hell was going on?

Down the hallway bustled a slender young woman. She was dressed as a nurse, in white, and a bit bloodstained. Her face was downcast, hidden behind a curtain of fair platinum blonde hair, and she had one slender arm wrapped around her middle as if in pain. Silently, she walked towards him and Sora felt as if every sound in the hospital fell away as she approached. There had been the sound of a flat line somewhere, of someone crying, of doctors barking orders, but it all went away. He realized he couldn’t hear her footsteps even in that supreme silence. She stopped in front of him and lifted her face. 

Sora felt a cry in his mouth, struggling to get out, and he staggered backwards away from her. “N-Namine—”

Half her face was warped, monstrous, and evil-looking. The flesh at the corner of one blue eye had been dragged down and twisted, snarled into a scarred knot just above her cheekbone, and the eye itself was swollen and half-lidded. One side of her beautiful red mouth was slashed in an ugly Chelsea smile, bloody and infected. He could see her razor-sharp teeth like row after row of broken glass filling half of her mouth and her flashing tongue through the gaping hole made by the slash. 

“Sora,” she said and her voice was garbled by the damage to her mouth. Her tongue poked through the gaping hole, between her teeth and getting cut on those razor-sharp points. Blood ran down her neck, seeped through her white shirt, and splattered on the white linoleum floor. “You have to hurry. He’s going to open the Gates!” she forced out, but her voice was gravelly. “I won’t be able to help you soon… If this keeps on—” she doubled over, clutching her midsection. “—I… I won’t be able to help you!” She let out a sound of agony and went down on her knees like a folded paper doll.

“Namine!” Sora lunched to catch her, but she fell through him like smoke in his hands. He whirled to look for her on the floor, but she was gone. He bit his lip, nervously touching his cold hands to his icy body where she had fallen through him. 

Then, he remembered one thing.

Namine’s diary. 

…

Having come with the ambulance, Kairi, and bleeding dying Riku the night before, it took Sora a while to get back to the Blackheart home. He practically sprinted the entire way, cursing himself for not keeping up on his jogging like he used to in his high school days. Finally, the house came into view. Namine’s garden had wilted into dead brown flowers and the wrought-iron fence still had a patch of bloody-rust where her body had landed. Actually, the entire house looked dead, barren, and hideously bleak. 

He almost didn’t want to go inside, but he knew he had to.

Sora hustled through the dim empty house, clambered up the stairs, and threw open the door to Namine’s bedroom. The shadows darted and skipped, Sora’s own shadow flashed across the wall like a ghost, and the bookshelf was so darkly shadowed that it took Sora several tries to locate the little pink tome. He opened it eagerly and paged through endless girlish entries. Finally, he came to something that caught his attention. It was dated July 14—the day Kairi left for the city. 

Sora sat down on Namine’s bed and began reading with a desperation that he didn’t understand. 

_**July 14** _

_My sister is leaving. As much as we fight, I’m going to miss her so much. I can’t believe she’s leaving us… leaving her family, her sister, Sora. When I look at him, I feel like he’s losing a piece of himself with her. He loves her. I know he does and I know she loves him, so… how can she leave?_

_I can hear Mom crying across the hall and Dad’s staying downstairs tonight._

_Won’t she miss us? How can she leave?_

_I drew a picture of my sister. I want to capture her beauty. I want to capture her before she leaves us forever._

_I know she won’t come back. Why? What is wrong with these Islands? Why does everyone who leaves this place never come back? Just like Xion’s brother, just like everyone else. I know Kairi won’t be coming back to me._

_**July 15** _

_I spent the day with Roxas at the beach, you know, to take my mind off of Kairi. (Xion couldn’t make it. She said she couldn’t get out of the house.) I’m worried about him. I think he’s being abused at home. He’s all… cut up and beaten up. Today, his eye was swollen shut and he could hardly open it. His depth perception was off and when we played Frisbee, he kept missing it and getting hit in the chest. I can only imagine the welts he had beneath his shirt._

_Anyway, I think Kairi’s leaving must really be bothering me. I keep seeing little shadows out of the corner of my eye. I’m probably just tired. Maybe I’ll stop wearing my contacts for a little and see if that does anything. Glasses, here I come. I hope Roxas still thinks I’m pretty when I wear them._

_**July 16** _

_He does! I asked and he just smiled that mysterious smile of his. I know he likes my glasses._

_Even so, I’m still seeing that shadow so I think I’ll go back to wearing my contacts because it’s easier for at the beach. I wonder what’s up. It’s probably just stress from Kairi leaving._

_**July 17** _

_I met Xion at the mall today to do a little shopping. I need a new bikini and I normally go with Kairi… Anyway, Xion insisted I get this little white one all covered in lip prints. She nudged me and said that maybe Roxas would use it as a map and kiss me in all those places._

_That would be so nice…_

_I really like him and I wish I had an older sister to coach me through my first boyfriend._

_Roxas is such a sweetie. He looks so innocent, but there’s something… haunted in his face. I get the feeling that he has some big dark secret just underneath the surface of his porcelain skin. But he’s so gentle even though he’s so much bigger than me. He’s wonderful. If I managed to catch him, I would never let him go._

_Oh, and he apparently has a brother, Ventus. I wonder if he’s as cute as Roxas._

_**July 19** _

_There was the ugliest spider in my room today._

_I swear it had a human face._

_I tried to crush it with my sketchpad, but it survived and crawled right out. So, I put it under a glass to let it suffocate and put a book on top of it while I went to shower, but when I came back it had overturned the glass and was gone. But that’s no possible right? I mean, just a little spider—no matter how ugly—could overturn a glass with a textbook on it?_

_Right?_

_**July 20** _

_I had a nightmare last night._

_An awful nightmare._

_It was so bad that I woke up Dad and Mom with whatever I was doing. I must have been screaming or crying in my sleep or something. I don’t really remember what happened, but I just feel such awful fear when I even try to think about what happened._

_**July 25** _

_Roxas says that I can’t meet Ventus. That I can never meet Ventus. I wanted so badly to ask him why, but I feel like it would really hurt him if I asked. So I didn’t…_

_**July 30** _

_I had that nightmare again. I swear it’s like someone is sitting on my bed at night, whispering awful things into my ear. ‘Just die, pretty Namine, just die.’ That’s what it says to me! It’s the most horrible thing to hear. I just wish it would stop. What on earth is going on in my head to make me have dreams like this? When school starts, I think I’ll talk to the school shrink._

_**August 13** _

_Friday the Thirteenth._

_And it’s been almost a month since Kairi left. I still miss her, but I’ve been busy._

_Actually, everyone’s been busy. I haven’t seen Xion or Roxas in forever. I wonder if they’re avoiding me. No, probably not._

_But either way, I’m so lonely._

_**September 3** _

_At least school is finally here. August was a lonely month._

_Anyway, the reports of my day:_

_Xion and Roxas weren’t in school today. I haven’t seen them in a long time, but I think I met Roxas’s brother. I mean, how many people could possibly have the name Ventus on our little island? And he looks exactly like Roxas. I mean EXACTLY. They must be twins! (He’s just as beautiful as Roxas, but I don’t like the look in his eyes. He looks… mean, almost, but that’s not quite it.)_

_I met another beautiful boy today—Kale. If I bring him home my dad will cry and he’ll think I’m Kairi. Kale looks… almost exactly like Sora. He has Sora’s face and Sora’s mouth, Sora’s chin and Sora’s long eyelashes. They could be twins—like Roxas and Ventus—except Kale has dark onyx hair to Sora’s brown and gold eyes to Sora’s blue. Those golden eyes really creep me out, but even so, there’s no denying that he’s beautiful._

_**September 6** _

_Kale asked me out on a date this Friday!_

_I can’t tell Dad because he’ll want to meet him and he’ll see Sora in Kale. I don’t want that. I think the wound caused by Kairi’s leaving is finally healing over. I haven’t’ heard Mom crying in a while._

_Anyway, he wants to take me to the movies—a ‘great horror flick,’ he says and I think he thinks I’ll get scared and he can hold me or something—and then out for a milkshake. I told him yes because I still haven’t heard from Xion or Roxas._

_I went by Roxas’s house (I followed Ventus home because I didn’t know where they lived) but I don’t think anyone was home. The house was really dark and I heard some weird crying sounds. Maybe they had a family tragedy and I didn’t want to intrude so I left. I felt as if I didn’t belong there. And I had to run away with my tail between my legs because I looked back and Ventus was watching me from the window. I hope he doesn’t say anything to Roxas about my following him home._

_I need a new outfit, but I guess I’ll have to go shopping by myself. I don’t have Kairi and I can’t take Xion…_

_**September 9** _

_I had the most amazing date with Kale. He wasn’t even get weirded out when I asked him to drop me off around the corner from my house and let me walk myself home alone. He got out of the car and opened my door for me and everything, like a real gentlemen, like Sora did for Kairi._

_Ack, I can’t think like that!_

_Sora came by today, just to see how I was doing. We went out for ice cream at the pier and talked a while. He doesn’t look like he’s hurting too badly, but maybe he’s like my parents and he’s just gotten good at hiding it. I had a nice time with him and I really wanted to tell him about my date with Kale, but I couldn’t. He’s still close with Dad and I know he wouldn’t betray my trust by telling if I asked him not to, but I can’t risk it slipping. That and what would Sora think if he saw that my boyfriend looks just like him?! It’d be so weird._

_Back to my date with Kale. The movie was such a flub. Horror flick my ass. I think he was more scared than I was, but I let him feel manly and hold me. And he’s so warm. He’s like a furnace. The heat just rolls off of him and I’m not being cliché._

_He didn’t kiss me goodnight, but that’s okay. Maybe next time…_

_**September 17** _

_Roxas came in to school today and Ventus was curiously absent. But Roxas looked absolutely horrible! His face is so pale and thin and his eyes have big dark circles under them. His lip is split and there’s a huge bruise on the side of his face. He told me that he was in a car accident, but I don’t believe him. I would have heard about that. Either way, I let it go._

_I was supposed to have lunch with Kale, but I cancelled to be with Roxas. We talked a little, but I think Roxas is really hurting underneath his clothes. I wonder if something is broken. He kept gasping for breath and his eyes would water like crazy, but he stuck with his story and just said he was getting sick._

_I don’t think Kale was happy about me being with Roxas, but I told him to fuck off. Roxas was my friend long before he was my boyfriend and he shut up right quick. Good. I really didn’t want to dump him, but I would have for Roxas, for a friend._

_**September 19** _

_I had the most awful nightmare again. That guy was whispering to me again, ‘Just die, pretty Namine, just die. I’ll make you suffer. I’ll make you bleed, pretty Namine.’ It’s unnerving, but the voice is almost like Kale’s… It must be my anger flowing into my dreams. He tried to tell me not to see Roxas again and even went so far as to grab me. I know Kairi never would have put up with that (not that Sora ever would have grabbed her) so I won’t either._

_It’s over between Kale and I!_

_No one will ever come between friends. Kairi taught me that._

_Speaking of friends, Roxas is gone again, but Xion is back. She came into church and left really fast. I’m going to go to her house tomorrow to see where she’s been._

_**September 20** _

_Xion and I mended fences very quickly. She told me that she had been really sick, in the hospital even, and she looks so pale and thin that there’s no other possibility. We went out for ice cream and sat on the beach until Xion’s skin started to burn. Then, I walked her home._

_Dad wanted to know what was up with her and I told him that she was alright._

_Roxas is the one I’m really concerned about. I get the feeling Xion knows what’s wrong with him, but they have some kind to pact not to tell me. Do they not trust me? I’m sure that’s not it. Xion and Roxas have been friends for a long time. They just must be very close and I’m still not close enough._

_**September 30** _

_Something is very wrong with this island. I have to find out what it is. I have to find out even if it kills me because if it doesn’t kill me… it’s going to kill my friends._

_I had that awful dream again, but it wasn’t just whispering anymore. I fell out the window and landed on the fence and… I died._

_**October 2** _

_I’ve been digging around in everything—libraries, archives, the internet, even the oldies at the nursing home—and I’ve heard a lot of disturbing things. The only problem is… I can’t be sure which are true and which are not. Some just seem so farfetched while others seem downright impossible._

_One of the old women said she went to her friend’s house in her youth and there was something big being butchered in the sink. And that it wasn’t dead yet. An old man insisted that his parents had tortured and beaten him to make him a vessel for demons. Apparently, the spirit must be very weak in order for demonic possession and what breaks people faster than pain? One of the caretakers there even told me that she had seem her little sister raped by shadows in the middle of the night and that her father couldn’t come to save her because something was outside tearing the horses to pieces. What on our little islands could be big and mean enough to butcher a horse?_

_I don’t know if any of that can possibly be true._

_I did find out one piece of information that I’m going to try to verify. Apparently, the Blackheart family used to have another house a long time ago. I think if I can find it, some of this might become a little clearer. How can I go about finding this old house, though?_

_**October 4** _

_The old Blackheart house is buried deep in the old Destiny Woods. I found an old newspaper article at the library from 1876 about the Blackheart family._

_There were twin sisters, Mio and Mayu, and one night while their parents were out, they made an Ouija board. Mayu claims that they summoned a monster, it came out of the game, and killed her sister. Either way, Mio was found dead outside their house. They didn’t blame Mayu, but Mio’s death was suspicious._

_After that, Mayu became a recluse. Her parents bought another house and moved out, but Mayu remained in the house where her sister died. She never married, just remained in that house where she later died of natural causes, but her parents had other children._

_I’m going into the woods tomorrow with Xion to try to find the old Blackheart house. Wish me luck._

_**October 5** _

_The house was a dump. It was full of the remains from the eighteenth century—dresses in the closets, pictures on the dressers, porcelain dolls on shelves, books on the bookcases, dishes and canned food in the cupboards, the tub half-full of old dark water, and there were all kinds of boxes in the attic. We didn’t find anything except a strange yellow sigil on the floor of the bedroom where Mayu must have slept, but I didn’t get a chance to go through any of the stuff in the attic._

_Xion started acting… strange…_

_Her eyes got all glazed and she started hugging herself and whispering. (I’d seen her do this before, but Roxas was always around and he swept her away before I could really see what was happening, but Roxas wasn’t with us. We haven’t seen Roxas in almost a week.) Anyway, she started whispering and I couldn’t really understand what she was saying but it sounded like, ‘He came out of the blackness… out of Hell… and he killed. He killed her. He would’ve killed everyone but she… but she… but she…’ Then, she snapped out of it and insisted we leave right away._

_I need to talk to Roxas. Maybe he’ll tell me what’s going on with her because Xion, as open as she is, won’t tell me. She pretended she didn’t remember anything. But, maybe she didn’t. Is it possible she had a psychic episode? Is that the right word?_

_**October 6** _

_I went to Roxas’s house, but no one answered. I heard music and singing inside. Maybe his parents were being romantic and had sent him and Ventus out for the day._

_I’ll try again tomorrow._

_**October 7** _

_Today I got a hold of Roxas, just as he was leaving his house and I was coming down the drive. He seemed very nervous and actually took hold of my arm. He pulled me away from the house rather desperately, as if he thought a monster was going to come crashing out of the door after him and rip up both to pieces._

_When Kale grabbed me, I dropped him like a hot potato, but it was different with Roxas. His hands felt so cold and weak and he looked so desperate, like he was protecting me from something and had no other choice. I know I promised Kairi that I would never let a man own me, but… it’s different with Roxas. He’s special._

_He practically ran to the beach, dragging me along, but I noticed he was limping a lot and gasping for breath._

_We spent a long time just sitting in the sand while he tried to catch his breath. Then he asked me how I managed to find him. I thought it was weird that Ventus wouldn’t have told Roxas that I stalked him home. I mean, twins are supposed to be incredibly close, aren’t they? I confessed that I had followed Ventus and Roxas seemed really troubled by that. He asked me if I had spoken with Ventus or touched him and he had that desperate look in his face again. I told him I hadn’t, which was true. I followed Ventus, but I don’t think I’d ever actually spoken with him._

_I told him about going to the Blackheart house and about what had happened to Xion. He didn’t say anything for a long time._

_Then he told me about Xion. He said she’s a psychic and therefore only partially usable. She channels built up energy, putting the energy to words, but as a medium, she is protected from the monsters that plague everyone else. They cannot use her for anything other than speaking._

_Then, Roxas’s eyes got very dark and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. He told me that he wasn’t hurt in a car accident. He told me that Ventus was the one who had hurt him. Their parents forced him to do it in order to weaken Ventus’s spirit and make him a vessel for monsters._

_Is this possible? What the hell is wrong with this place?_

_**October 8** _

_Kale just came to my house. He came in through the open window in my bedroom and pinned me to the bed. His body was burning hot, like he had a fever. He kissed my neck and whispered awful things to me. He kept saying that I was his and he could do whatever he wanted to me. He said I was his right and that my family owed him blood. I screamed and screamed, but nothing happened. Mom and Dad were out to dinner so the house was empty._

_Kale just smirked at me and put his hand over my mouth. He said he had seen me at the old Blackheart house and he had seen me visiting Roxas and didn’t I know that I was his? Then, without a word, he climbed out the window and I was alone. I don’t think I could have made him leave._

_After I fell asleep, I had that nightmare again, but it was Kale whispering to me, telling me to die. I was tied to my bed, naked, and he cut me up with this knife. Then, when I was weak from bleeding so much, he picked me up and threw me out the window. It was closed and my body broke all the glass. Even so, I still landed on the fence outside. I felt the iron spikes inside my body, tearing through my ribcage and piercing my heart._

_I’m afraid._

_**October 10** _

_I told Roxas and Xion about Kale. And about my nightmares._

_They were both extremely concerned, afraid even, and Roxas insisted I describe Kale to him. I hadn’t even realized my friends had never met Kale. When I described him, saying that he looked a lot like Sora, Xion’s eyes glazed over but she didn’t say anything. Roxas put his arm around her and then his other around me and just hugged us both tightly._

_After a long moment, Xion finally spoke. She said, ‘The Gates are opening… He’ll open the Gates.’_

_What can we do? I mean, we’re only teenagers. I think we’re in over our heads._

_**October 11** _

_Ventus came and took Roxas away._

_**October 12** _

_My nightmares are getting worse. I can’t sleep at night anymore. I’m starting to look like Roxas with the big bag under my eyes._

_I’ve started researching demons. I’m not saying I believe in them, but I’m ready to accept any possibility and something is definitely wrong with Kale. He’s not… human. I mean, what about the way he snuck into my room and pinned me down? And those eyes of his are not human. Who one earth has golden eyes? And they’re almost like lanterns, but that might just be spillover from my nightmares. In them, his eyes glow and cast all these shadows that turn into monsters that cut me._

_I need to sleep. I’m so exhausted, but I can’t… I’m afraid to sleep._

_But it’s just as awful being awake._

_**October 13** _

_School today—Monday, yuck._

_I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept waking up to these little animal sounds I was making._

_Roxas has bruises all around his throat. It looks like someone has strangled him plus all his old injuries. He looks like a zombie._

_Ventus hasn’t been in school lately either. I guess it’s true that Ventus is the one who’s hurting Roxas._

_Xion had a ‘psychic episode’ right in the middle of class today. She started screaming and shouting the word, ‘Vanitas,’ whatever that could be._

_What could all this mean?_

_It’s like the world is falling apart._

_**October 15** _

_I looked up the word Vanitas._

_It’s not a word. It’s actually a name—the name of one of Hell’s most powerful demons. Vanitas is a masked or faceless monster and because of this he can change his appearance into whatever will help him torment and eventually kill his intended victims. He is also what is known as a ‘chain-demon.’ When he is summoned via ceremony or Ouija board or other method, he is bound to only one family until he either annihilates the line or is summoned again by a new family. But if he is released rather than summoned, he will be able to wreak havoc on the entire world. He has the power to open the Gates of Hell._

_I think… Kale might be the demon Vanitas. It’s not likely that someone who looks so much like Sora could possibly exist on our tiny island, especially with Sora’s parents being dead and Sora only ever being with Kairi so Kale couldn’t be related to the Strifes. I think he may have been using Sora’s face to try to get to me._

_Vanitas… Is that what we’re up against?_

_I still can’t sleep._

_**October 16** _

_Xion and I went back to the old Blackheart house, but we brought Roxas with us this time. I wanted to show him the yellow sigil on the floor of Mayu’s room. But when we arrived we found the there was a big X drawn across it in blood._

_Roxas got incredibly pale and asked me if I had touched it. I hadn’t, but he was in such a state that Xion had to vouch for me._

_Roxas said that the sigil is an archaic seal to lock away demons and their powers. If they can be locked away beneath this seal for six-hundred-sixty-six years, they will be completely destroyed, but someone had broken the seal on Vanitas before that time. Even so, Mio and Mayu Blackheart hadn’t been alive since the eighteen hundreds so he had been sealed up for at least one hundred years. Vanitas is weak, Roxas told me, that’s why he must be using Kale’s face to torment me. If Vanitas had the power, he would’ve just killed me outright because he is a chain-demon and my family’s death is his right._

_I sketched the sigil and we went to the library to look it up. Maybe we could find some way to reverse the seal on Vanitas and stop all this._

_This sigil is the specific signature for the demon Vanitas and, in order to efficiently seal him up, Mayu must have drawn it in two separate places. To break the seal, someone from my family must have touched it. Vanitas must have tracked down the untouched sigil and drawn the X of blood over it to break it as well and release all his power._

_Even so, Roxas said it would take some time for him to regain all of his power and strength. So we have a small window of opportunity to stop him before he becomes powerful enough to kill me outright. Well, I started having these nightmares (not that I could remember them at the time) since a little after Kairi left. That was in July, four months ago. In November, six months since his release and two months from now, Vanitas will probably be strong enough to kill me. If he can’t kill me at that time, he will be bounced back to his weak state, but will apparently regain his powers rather quickly after that no matter what happens._

_We’ll have to hurry._

_**October 20** _

_Roxas thinks we may be able to seal Vanitas using Mayu’s sigils, but only if we’re able to do it exactly the same way she did. He plans to talk Xion into a regression, using her psychic power to look into the past. Hopefully, we can see what Mayu did and recreate it to stop him._

_**October 21** _

_I don’t know if that’s going to happen now._

_While we were at the beach today, Ventus came. His eyes were bright gold, just like Kale’s. He grabbed Roxas by his upper arm and Roxas cried out because he’s hurt under his shirt, but Ventus heedlessly dragged him away. Xion and I tried to get him away from Roxas, but Ventus brushed us off like we were flies. I hit the side of my face on a palm tree and Xion was distracted by helping me up. When we turned to go after Ventus again, he was already gone._

_**October 22** _

_I want to go to Roxas’s house and try to get him out. I don’t want Ventus to hurt him anymore! But Xion says it’s too dangerous._

_Even so…_

_Tomorrow, I’m going!_

_**October 25** _

_I woke up in the hospital. I don’t really remember what happened, just little snippets and flashes._

_I remember going to Roxas’s house. I know I didn’t knock. I just threw the door open and charged into the house. It was dark inside, even though it was daytime. I remember looking at my long shadow on the hardwood floor. I ran through the house, calling out for Roxas._

_Then, I remember seeing my hands reaching for a doorknob. I opened the door and it opened on a narrow flight of concrete steps—the basement? I can’t be sure. I don’t really remember going through the whole house looking for Roxas._

_It gets worse once I went down those steps. It smelled like blood down there. There was a lot of chanting going on and I couldn’t see. I screamed Roxas’s name and everything went quiet and lights came on. I couldn’t see for a minute, couldn’t see anything, but I could hear Roxas._

_At least I think it was him…_

_It had to have been him!_

_He was whimpering and sobbing, crying and I heard him saying my name. I couldn’t see him but he sounded to hurt. It was awful and I tried to push through all the people in the basement. After that, I don’t remember anything and I woke up in the hospital._

_What happened down there?_

_**October 27** _

_Xion came in to see me. She brought some flowers from my garden. I'm not getting released from the hospital for a while yet. Someone found me lying on the roadside a few miles from Roxas’s house, thought I had gotten heatstroke, and brought me to the hospital. Apparently while I was unconscious, I was screaming about demons, how Roxas’s twin was torturing him, and that Kale was a monster. They want to keep me in for observation. They think I’m crazy._

_What am I going to do?_

_I can’t do anything now._

_I can’t help Roxas._

_I can’t stop Vanitas._

_I’m going to die!_

_**October 28** _

_I guess I didn’t have to worry so much. Mom and Dad don’t think I’m crazy and they signed me out on the condition that I would spend some time resting. They think what happened was just because of lack of sleep. So long as it gets me out of the hospital, I’ll let them believe whatever they want._

_**October 30** _

_Tomorrow is Halloween._

_The one time of year that demons and monsters are at the height of their power. I shudder to think of what Vanitas will do tomorrow._

_I’m afraid._

The next entry was smudged and smeared with tears.

_**November 1** _

_He came into my room last night while my parents were at a Halloween party. I was still awake, sitting up, afraid for my life. He didn’t even sneak in through the window. He knew I was alone and he just walked boldly through my bedroom door. He looked more like a monster than ever. Those eyes of his glowed like lanterns and he was still wearing Sora’s face. I told him I knew all about him, that I knew he was Vanitas, and that I was going to stop him! He just smiled and his mouth was all full of these teeth that were like broken glass._

_Then, I just blinked and he was suddenly right in front of me, inches from my face! He grabbed me, shoved me down on the bed, and kissed my neck. I felt him lick me and his tongue was rough and sharp. He dug his fingers into my stomach like he was going to tear me apart._

_Then, he… he… he raped me._

_**November 2** _

_Xion managed to catch one of the little demons that are slinking around the islands. She has it in a Tupperware container and it looks just like that hideous spider that was in my room a while back. An ugly black spider with a human face._

_**November 3** _

_I told Xion what Vanitas did to me. She didn’t do anything but hug me, but somehow that was enough._

_I’m going to stop Vanitas! I’m going to destroy him! I’m going to destroy him for what he did to me!_

_**November 5** _

_Roxas is so hurt, but he’s trying not to show it. Just like how I haven’t told him what Vanitas did to me and I asked Xion not to tell him either. Tonight, we’re going to use Xion to regress and see what Mayu did to seal Vanitas. Then, we’re going to recreate it and seal him up again._

_Kiss your days on Earth goodbye, you monster-bastard!_

_**November 17** _

_It took us so long to gather the supplies we needed to seal him, but we were mainly waiting for Roxas to heal some. It’s going to be dangerous. When we seal Vanitas, we also risk letting him into the portal to Hell where he could regain all his powers, including his ability to open the Gates of Hell. If something goes wrong, we wanted Roxas to be able to defend himself. Tonight, we’re going to do it!_

_**November 20** _

_Kale._

Written in red on a bed of ink-black.

Namine’s diary ended there, but Sora knew that they had either failed or the ritual had gone wrong because Vanitas was still loose and Namine was dead. He remembered what her ghost had said to him in the hospital—‘He’s going to open the Gates!’ Vanitas or Kale must have gotten into the portal to Hell somehow. What would it mean for the world if Hell opened up? Shivering, Sora closed her diary and laid it on her pillow. He glanced at the window and was shocked to see Namine’s slender misty-white silhouette standing there, looking out on the fence where she had died. Silently, she half turned and looked back at her room. Sora saw that she was crying. 

“If he kills me,” she whispered. “There will be no stopping him.” Namine touched her face, hugging herself and sobbing. “Guys, I will do what I can from the other side. We can’t risk it.”

Sora heard half-hearted protests ringing in his ears. Xion and Roxas? Had they been here when Namine jumped?

X X X

Crazy long chapter! Almost 7,000 words! Can you believe it?!

Questions, comments, concerns?

(Well, I have a concern! Where the heck did Kairi go?! I lost her! She got lost in my tangled plot! Come back, Kairi, come back! *goes off whistling and yelling like I’m looking for a dog*)


	12. Angels & Demons

Since Fanfiction is still wonky, whoever is getting errors, try Googling "Fanfiction Type 2 Error." That's how I got around my errors. There was a forum that told you a bunch of ways to sneakily get around it. Give it a shot if you're desperate and spread the word if you know other people who are having issues and need to post!

X X X

After Kairi woke up, stiff and cramped from sleeping in the emergency-waiting-room-chair that was very well-known for being uncomfortable, a young nurse on the dayshift told her that Riku wanted to see her so she padded quietly down the halls until she came to his room. Inside, she found him sitting up in the white bed with a lot of bandages around his throat. His eyes were closed, hands folded tightly together, and his lips were moving reverently. 

“Riku,” she whispered and his head snapped up. His green eyes were exhausted and stressed, but lightened at the sight of her. “What are you doing?”

“Praying.” His voice was hoarse from the damage to his throat and she bet it hurt him to speak. 

“Praying?” she repeated.

He nodded, wet his lips, and forced out, “Someone has to.”

“Why?”

“Hell is opening. I saw it.”

Riku reached out for her desperately and Kairi came quickly to his side. She took his cold white hand and sat in the stiff chair at his bedside. From outside, warm sunlight streamed across the white sheets and blankets like nothing was wrong. 

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I had a dream…”

“When?”

He touched his throat, fingering the peeling tape. “Right before I woke up and found this,” he whispered.

“After you woke up in the hospital?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Before… back at your house… I had it right before I felt this horrible tearing pain in my neck and, when I woke up, I saw you pressing on my throat with your hands. Something came out of my dream, took you over, and used you to hurt me.” He reached out to cup her face, but Kairi shied from his touch. “I saw the blood in your mouth, on your teeth,” he whispered and his eyes fluttered almost closed. “Like lipstick on your teeth…” he said almost deliriously. 

Kairi’s heart thundered. So, she had been the one who hurt Riku as she had feared and, worse yet, he knew it. Oh god! But, she had dreamed of Kale doing that to Sora! What if it had been Sora?! What if she had hurt Sora, too?! “What happened in your dream?” she forced out through her fear. 

Riku sagged back against the pillows. “I saw these big gates,” he whispered. “They were open just a crack and all these little shadowy creatures with yellow eyes were coming out. Even as I watched, the gates opened a little wider and flames began to shoot out. Big ugly monster fingers poked through the opening. I ran to close it and the flames shot around my neck, tearing into me. Before I woke up, I saw… Kale peeking out through the gap. His face was all twisted and his mouth was full of broken glass. His neck stretched out impossibly and he bit my throat.” A little more delirium, “Like a vampire…”

“Kale?” Kairi croaked. Kale had been in her dream too. What could Namine’s pretty young boyfriend have to do with this? Then, she remembered, “The one with Sora’s face,” she whispered.

“What?” He came sharply back to his senses, shaking himself as if those words meant something to him.

“That’s what Dad says Namine said before she jumped. She said, ‘The one with Sora’s face,’ and then she jumped out the window.”

“Kale,” Riku said with conviction. “He does look a lot like Sora… except for those awful eyes.”

“I know,” Kairi said and bit her lip. “I need to go. I need to find Sora.”

Riku clutched her hand. “Why?”

“Because,” she hesitated, but finally told him. They were all stuck in this living nightmare now. “In my dream, Kale bit his throat out.”

Riku shuddered. “Mine too, but Kairi—”

She was already halfway to the door.

“—Be careful,” he said.

She nodded. “I will.”

The waiting room was empty, Deirdre and Rick were gone, but they had left their stuff: Rick’s coat and Deirdre’s purse. Kairi thought that was a little strange, but she didn’t stop to think about it. Maybe they had gone to the cafeteria to get some food. Her father’s coat was draped over a chair and Kairi quickly dug in the pockets for the car keys. “Sorry Mom and Dad,” she said because she was taking the car and leaving them stranded here for now, but without another thought she dashed into the parking lot, found the car, and cranked over the engine. Then, she raced home.

…

Roxas came sharply awake with a jolt of pure agony burning fiercely through his blood. His blue eyes shot open like snapped blinds and the sunlight blinded him. A cry caught in his mouth, bitten back out of sheer willpower and forced habit. He realized the pain had come from his battered body coming into harsh contact with the ground though it was sandy and soft, just to show how injured he was. 

Beside him, inches from his outstretched fingertips and strewn like something used, lay his twin. Ventus was on his hands and knees, head tucked in against his chest, hacking and coughing and struggling with something unseen deep inside him. Even as Roxas watched, hopelessly wrought with pain, Ventus tug sharp teeth into his lower lip and let out a small inhuman cry. Then, gasping and panting, Ventus collapsed beside Roxas. As if there was a great rift between them, Ventus’s blue-gold-stained unnerving eyes seemed to reach out to him across unmentionable fathoms of guilt and hurt, more like twisted blown-glass marbles than real eyes. 

“Ven,” Roxas croaked. His mouth tasted like blood, stale and thick. 

Ventus reached out to him and Roxas readily, eagerly, gripped his twin’s ice-cold hand. 

“What happened?” Roxas forced out. He wanted to sit up, but he couldn’t find the strength or the will so he only tightened his grip on Ventus’s hand. 

“I took you out of that place,” Ventus whispered. His voice was harsh, caught somewhere between the musical lit that they shared and the hoarse tones of a monster escaped from Hell. In his mouth, square human teeth were pushing through the mess of broken glass. He whimpered and brought one hand to his mouth, clutching at his jaw as the teeth shifted and plowed through his gums. Blood dripped from the corner of his lips.

“Why?” Roxas whispered, feeling his own pain fade into the background as he watched the anguish in Ventus’s face, watched the blood rolling down his white chin. “You know they’ll find us again. The islands are too small. We can’t hide and we can’t run away.”

“I know,” Ventus whispered, “but I—” he yelped in pain “—I couldn’t… anymore…”

“It’s okay, Ven,” Roxas whispered.

“It’s not okay. You’re my little brother and my twin… and I was—” His cold fingers dug sharply into Roxas’s hand, ugly black claws pushing out from his fingertips, and Ventus made that animal sound again deep in his chest like something was breaking apart. As if reluctant, the gnarled sharp claws sank back into Ventus’s fingertips as if they never were. “—hurting you…”

Through Ventus’s thick honey-blonde lashes, Roxas glimpsed blue eyes of his own color. Was Ventus fighting the demon that inhabited him, pushing it out? Was he winning? Was that even possible? It seemed too good to be true.

He could have his twin, his loving brother, back…

Too good to be true or a long-awaited break in fate?

“Ven?” Roxas whispered.

A small quirking of his pained lips in acknowledgment because Roxas could practically hear his twin’s teeth and broken-glass-fangs grinding and moving in his mouth.

“Are you fighting it?”

“Yes—No—I don’t know—” 

Roxas squeezed his twin’s cold hand and didn’t say anything. He had nothing to say, after all. Silently, he lay on the ground beside his brother as he writhed in agony against the monsters that plagued them both. Maybe this time, they could get away.

…

Xion wasn’t let out of that dark little room so much as spilled out. She had exhausted herself with her frenzied pounding and had fallen asleep against the door she had battered on so hard the long night before. Now, with a muted click, the sliding bolt on the outside of the door snapped back and the knob-less door swung open on well-oiled hinges. Xion spilled out into the hallway beyond, blinded by the warm sunlight and waking immediately. She quickly scrambled to her feet, head whipping in both direction in search of the one who had freed her from her prison. 

The house beneath her feet was quiet and still. She knew immediately that it was empty of her parents and the rest of Destiny Island’s awful black cult. They had gone out the night before, locking her up so she wouldn’t get in the way, preventing and fighting them as she had been for eternity. They had probably gone to Roxas’s house. Roxas and Ventus had been their objects for almost as long as Xion had learned the truth and pushed back. 

Xion quickly dashed to her room and stripped of her sweat-soaked clothing from the night before. She hastily tore through her closet for black jeans, a heavy long-sleeved shirt, and the backpack of supplies she had gathered just for this occasion—her father’s gun, an accumulation of money, bandages, a few cans of food, and clean underwear. She shouldered it quickly and headed for the stairs. She had to get out of here. She needed to get to Roxas. She needed to help him.

A soft sudden whisper, but in the empty house, it was loud enough to be a shout. “Xion!”

Xion whirled, dark hair flying like a storm cloud around her head. The hallway behind her, threshold of her bedroom, and the half-open pitch dark door of her prison were all empty of everything from nightmare creatures to humans possessed by nightmare creatures. 

“Who’s there?” she called out. Her voice echoed lamely back to her and there was no answer.

Xion turned back to the stairs, reaching out for the railing out of habit and felt it against her palm while she was still looking back down the empty hallway. Then, the rest of her body turned and she found herself face-to-face with Namine. If Xion hadn’t been so used to dealing with the dead on the other side or had been a lesser person, she might have screamed at the sight of her friend, but she didn’t. Instead, she let her backpack slide from her shoulder and whispered, “Oh Namine…”

Namine’s face and body were deteriorating. She had appeared to Sora in the hospital only that morning, but her decline had been drastic, even for someone who was already dead. Now, her platinum blond tresses were hanging down from her scalp from threads of ripped flesh, the flesh twisted at the corner of her eyes was mottled black with bruises, her blue eyes was seeping bloody tears and swollen into a single slit fringed with spidery lashes covered in blood, and her Chelsea-smile-cut mouth had split up to her ear and the infection had spread there. Inside her mouth, her teeth were nothing but glass on one side while her tongue was turning into rotted black flesh. The decay had spread from her face down the entire left side of her body. The flesh was peeled down from her shoulder, exposing the long white slash of her clavicle and the top of her scapulae in her back like twisted angel wings. Her fingers were nothing but bone and she stood on a foot twisted in at an impossible broken angle. The other side of her face and body were still almost completely whole and beautiful. Half of her clothing was rose-red with blood while the other remained pristine snow-white.

“What’s happening?”

“He’s taking me,” she whispered and blood gushed from her mouth as her tongue touched those jagged teeth.

“Vanitas?” Xion didn’t waste time. She knew how hard it was for spirits to contact the living and, with the way Namine looked, she knew her friend didn’t have much time. 

Namine nodded. “He’s going to throw open the Gates, Xion. He’s going to lure Sora to the old Blackheart house. If he can get some of Sora’s blood on the sigil there, he will have all his powers back and he’s going to open the Gates of Hell.”

“He didn’t get them all when our sealing-ritual failed?” She was almost relieved. That gave them at least a little more time. 

Namine shook her head. “It was flawed. I am—” she gasped in pain “—a person of Light. Apparently, something in me blocked his ability to open Hell. He needs all his powers to unleash the beast.”

“I thought he only needed to kill someone in your family to get his powers back?! And your parents are safe! I was watching after Kairi.” Xion paused, caught by a thought. “Sora, you said?” she repeated, genuinely confused. “Why Sora?”

Namine made a sound of pain, clutching at her stomach with both hands. “I don’t know. I couldn’t find out. Something about Sora’s parents…”

Xion wanted to question, but she was losing precious seconds. “What else is happening?”

“Ventus and Roxas—” before Xion’s eyes, Namine’s feather-thin body cracked as if punched. One white rib poked out through the bloody side of her dress, sharply stabbing through the fabric. Namine put her fingers to it, pressing as if awed by the pain. 

“Can you feel that?” Xion whispered.

Namine shook her head slowly. “No, that pain is very distant…” she continued. “Ventus got Roxas out of their house.”

Xion bent to grab her bag again. “Where are they?”

“The beach, hidden in the palm grove.”

“How bad is it?”

“I can’t be sure. Roxas is always so bloody.” She pushed the rib back into her body. “Vanitas is taking me over. Soon, I won’t be able to help you. You have to hurry, Xion.”

Xion shouldered her backpack. “I will. Anything else?”

Namine started to shake her head and then said softly, “I think Vanitas needs Kairi, too.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. I just know he’s after Sora and Kairi. That’s why he possessed Kairi in dreams last night and made her hurt Riku. He wanted Riku out of his way,” Namine explained. Her damaged form wavered, faded out, and came quickly back. “I’m losing it.” 

“What can I do?” Xion asked quickly, before Namine vanished. 

“Help our friends. Find Sora—” But then the connection was shattered. Namine was gone and the house was empty again. 

Xion dug her fingers into the strap of her backpack, shouldered it roughly, and crashed down the stairs. She threw open the front door, skidded down her winding gravel driveway and onto the main road, and went quickly out into the unobstructed warm island sunlight. It was hot as Hell.

…

It had all started with the curious Blackheart sisters, Mio and Mayu. Mio was dead that night, fallen, just like Namine. Mayu lived on, a recluse and learned to shut away the demon Vanitas behind sigils of power for at least one hundred years. 

It started again the night before Kairi left, wrapped in passion with Sora Strife in their secret place. She had seen the sigil and touched it, just a simple touch as soft as the archaic sister on the Ouija planchette. That was all it took to unleash Vanitas again—the touch of a Blackheart.

Kairi had left, leaving Namine as the only target, but Vanitas was weak from his imprisonment. He had to skirt around direct methods of murder—wearing Kale’s face, in dreams, in sick twisted whispers, in human-faced spiders, in destructive rape. He had to make her want to die, but it hadn’t worked. 

Namine had decided to destroy him as Mayu had, to imprison him again. 

When the ritual she performed with Roxas and Xion failed only days before the return of most of Vanitas’s powers in late November, she decided the only way to stop Vanitas was to kill herself. She couldn’t let him kill her and regain all of his powers, namely the one to open the Gates. Roxas and Xion had been with her that night, sitting on her bed, watching her. They had begged her not to do it, that there had to be another way, but Namine had insisted.

Rick was a liar. He had never come into Namine’s room that night. 

It had just been Roxas, Xion, and Namine… and maybe human-spider Vanitas lurking somewhere in the shadows. 

…

Twins. 

What had made them loved and special also made them tormented and special. 

You see, they had summoned demons before, but demons were fickle creatures. They were not easy to control or boss or order about. Demons killed at will, on whims, for no reason at all. So, they decided to use twins—Ventus and Roxas. 

Ventus’s heart and soul were weakened by forcing him to mutilate and hurt his precious brother, his own likeness, while Roxas was strengthened by trying to survive the pain. Like that, they then summoned a demon and forced it to use Ventus as a vessel. They didn’t let it just run wild and with the boys being twins, Ventus’s soul went into Roxas for safekeeping while the demon inhabited Ventus. Then, when the demon returned to Hell, Ventus’s soul came out of Roxas and returned to his proper body. 

Using the twins, they found a way to control the demon they had summoned. 

They… they were the monsters of Destiny Island. The human monsters, the cult!

…

But, where there were monsters, there had to be angels. And angels there were.

The first were Sora Strife’s parents. 

After that, there must have been angels in between, but the most recent was Xion.

Roxas and Ventus were too twisted, too hurt, and too snarled by torturous life to be angels. Maybe later, but not now.

Sora’s parents had died at sea, the same night it happened to Sora. 

It happened. 

_‘Mom? Dad? Where are you?’_

The distant pounding of the ocean against the cliffs, the tearing pain in his young shoulders, the roughhewn wooden cross lying on the sandy ground beside him, and the thick storm clouds overhead. Then, the beginnings of the most awful storm in Destiny Island’s history. It even overshadowed the storm that had come with the Disease. 

_‘Mom? Dad? Where are you?’_

X X X

You should all be good and confused by now! That includes you, Demoness! 

(Even though I gave you all a small block of explanation because the information has been coming in one-liners here and there. Now, some mystery has been revealed with a few new ones added… And yeah, I’m not making ANY headway!) 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	13. The Strife Family's Cross to Bear

Because everyone keeps saying ‘Informational Overload’ with the info-block at the end of the last chapter, I’m going to say this once… All that stuff was info I had ALREADY told you in earlier chapters! Already told you! That was a recap section!

X X X

Sora didn’t put Namine’s little pink flowered diary back on the bookshelf in her bedroom. Instead, he tucked into one of the saddlebags of his motorcycle, revved the engine, and roared off towards his house. He needed to find out how his parents had died. It was like a burr under his skin, tearing, tearing, tearing, away at him. He had a feeling it was gravely important that he find out how and why they had died. But all he could remember was his own meek little voice calling out, ‘Mom? Dad? Where are you?’ in that broken octave only children could manage. 

Finally, the home of his youth where he had lived alone for most of his life came into view. He hadn’t been home in several days he was suddenly very aware that he had slept in these clothes last night at the hospital. He parked his bike on the lawn, clambered off, grabbed Namine’s diary, dug the key off his key ring, unlocked the door, and charged into his home. In the dimness of his drawn curtain, he stumbled over some discarded shoes and almost landed flat on his face. 

Sora dug into the wall, lurched back to his feet, and raced down the hall. He pushed open the door to his parent’s bedroom. The bed was still unmade, sheets mussed, from the nights he had spent sleeping in their bed after they died. Even today, years later, standing in their room made his heart hurt. He felt the loss of them as acutely like a gaping gunshot wound. 

Strange, after he turned ten, he had stopped missing them. 

Reverently, Sora lay down in his parents’ bed. He inhaled the sheets, but they only smelled like dust and age. Silently, he sat up and looked around the room—exactly as they had left it, frozen in time. His mother’s vanity was still untouched, powders laid out for use and lipsticks lined up neatly beside her ancient silver brush. His father’s deodorant, shoes tucked with his worn socks, and his baseball glove that he used to play catch with Sora sometimes were all still on top of the dresser. In the neatly labeled police-issued cardboard box were all the things the police had found on his parents’ bodies when they washed up on the beach. Sora hadn’t touched that either. 

He hadn’t touched anything in this room for more than ten years. 

But now, he lifted the box onto the bed beside him and opened it. Inside lay his father’s waterlogged wallet, their wedding rings, his mother’s necklace with its many charms, tattered remains of clothing, and a single shoe. That was all, the last things he had of them. 

Sora lifted his father’s wallet and quietly opened it. There were still pictures, credit cards, and money inside. Sora only had eyes for the pictures—pictures of him as a child, of his mother when she was a teen, of his father and mother hugging or kissing. Snapshots, frozen in time, faces he would never see again, lips that would never smile again, voices that would never be heard again. His parents, Namine… there was too much death in his life. 

Sora’s eyes burned and he quickly shoved the wallet back into the box and slammed the lid down on it. Then, he abruptly stood from the bed, took a deep breath, closed his eyes tightly, and whispered that horrible sentence, “Mom? Dad? Where are you?” 

He had hoped speaking it aloud would jog his just-out-of-reach memory, but he could recall nothing. It still escaped him.

Groaning, Sora flopped down on his parents’ bed again, burying his face in his mother’s pillow. He squeezed it to his chest, wishing absently for his mother or his father or even for Kairi. It had been so long since he had been held or touched. He made a small sound of pain deep in his chest and his eyes filled with tears. Coming from such sky-colored eyes, tears were more like rain. Sora sobbed into the pillow, curling in on himself. 

Like that, for the first time in eleven years, he cried himself to sleep. 

…

Xion arrived at the beach shortly after her encounter with Namine in her house. The day was warm and sunny, but did nothing to chase the chill from her bones. Her heavy boots sank in the sand as she slogged quickly along the shoreline. Her backpack was making her shoulder sweaty and it was too hot for her jeans and long-sleeved shirt, but she hurried on regardless. Her hair was sticking to the back of her neck by the time she reached the place where the twins had fallen. 

Lying close together, hands clasped, in a shaded grove of palms where Xion happily stopped to catch her breath, were Roxas and Ventus. They were mirror-images of each other, beautiful blonde boys with deep ocean-blue eyes, but Roxas’s face was bruised, swollen, and bloody while Ventus was as perfect and lovely as a model. 

Xion crouched at Roxas’s side, gently took his shoulders, and rolled him over so that he was lying on his back. Even that small movement hurt him and his eyes fluttered open. “Xion?” he whispered. “How’d you find me?”

“I’ll explain later. Are you okay?”

“More or less.” He struggled to sit up, allowing Xion so press her hands into his back and hold him up with one arm around his shoulders. 

“Do you need some bandages?”

He shook his head. “Do you have water?”

Xion fished through her backpack and dug out the canteen she had tossed in at the last minute when she realized how hot it was outside. “Need help?”

“I’ve got it,” he murmured and unscrewed the cap with weak fingers. He took a deep drink and then wiped his mouth. There was a lot of blood on the back of his hand. 

“Are you hurt?” Xion asked, tipping her head at the blood.

“I think I bit my tongue to keep from screaming,” he said softly and lowered his eyes. 

Xion cupped his damaged face in her hands, touching his cut mouth and bruised eyes. “Why would you do that?”

Roxas craned his eyes to Ventus’s slumped form. “I don’t want him to suffer.”

“But you suffer,” Xion said sharply.

Roxas closed his eyes. “We’re twins and I know he wouldn’t hurt me if he could avoid it. He got me out of there and he was fighting the demon today.”

“Fighting it?”

He nodded. “Yeah, his teeth kept changing.”

Xion was quiet for a moment, gazing at Ventus’s back as he breathed easily in sleep. Then, he returned her eyes to Roxas and felt a spur of hate deep in her chest. Even sitting down and half-supported by Xion, Roxas was still breathing heavy with pain and she could feel him trembling. Roxas was so hurt and it was all Ventus’s fault. She didn’t see how Roxas could forgive and sacrifice to easily. If it was her, she wouldn’t be able to live and let live the way Roxas did. Hell, she still didn’t forgive her own parents and they only locked her up some nights so that she couldn’t get in the way of their rituals. Snorting at the memory, Xion screwed the cap tightly back onto the canteen and put it back in her pack. 

“Can you stand?” she asked Roxas. 

“If you help me, I think,” he said softly. “Wake up Ventus please.”

Xion jolted. “You want to bring him with us?”

Roxas nodded. 

“But… I know he was fighting the monster earlier, but if it takes him over again, he could return you home. He could hurt you again!”

He lowered his soft ocean-colored eyes and they were wine-dark with sadness. “I know, but… he’s my twin, Xion. Can you expect me to leave him?”

Xion bit her lip. She wanted to say yes. If it was her, she’d be happy to leave her dangerous damaging demon-possessed twin far behind in the dust, but Roxas was a different kind of person. He was softer, more forgiving, more loving and dedicated.

“I’m injured. I’ll only slow you down. Why would you want to bring me with you?”

Xion had nothing to say to that. Instead, she cautiously knelt beside Ventus and carefully roused him. He sat up quickly, blue eyes wide and innocent. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an on-coming truck. “Hey, Ventus, we’re going to get going. Can you walk?”

In response, he scrambled to his feet and stood staring down at Roxas where he was still seated in the sand. 

“Roxas,” he whispered. 

Roxas gave his twin a small smile. “It’s okay, Ven. I’m okay.”

Xion shouldered her pack again, crouched at Roxas’s side, hitched his arm over her shoulders, and heaved them both to their feet. Roxas leaned heavily on her, his body was cold and soft against her side and she was sure she must have felt like an oven to him with as hot and sweaty as she was. She guided him through a few unsteady steps while he got feeling back into his legs. He was gasping desperately for breath, but after a few moments, his heaving chest evened out and his body warmed up. 

“You alright?” Xion asked him.

“Yeah,” he said and looked up at Ventus where he was standing nervously beside one of the crooked palms. “Ven, could you come here and take Xion’s bag?”

Ventus nodded and took a step towards her. 

But Xion curved her shoulder inward. “It’s alright. I’d rather hold it,” she said coolly. 

Ventus shrank away from her, looking rather like a kicked puppy.

Roxas flashed Xion a hurt look, but she pretended she didn’t see. Roxas might have been able to forgive and trust his twin even after everything Ventus had done to him—under demonic control or not. Xion didn’t trust anymore. She didn’t trust anyone, not since she had found out the truth about Destiny Islands and about her parents. Now, she only trusted Roxas… and Namine, back when Namine had been alive and not half-monster. 

…

Kairi arrived home to a cool empty house. Her heart was pounding and the heat of the day had seeped into her skin, making her feel like she was trapped in an oven. She called out for Sora since he had been staying with at her house for what felt like an eternity. “Sora?”

“I’m up here.”

“Where?”

“In Namine’s room.”

Kairi ascended the stairs, gripping the railing in one hand. “What are you doing up there?”

“Just looking around…” Softer. “I miss Namine.”

Kairi nudged open her sister’s bedroom door, taking in the sight of the room that was all light and clouds and beauty. The room was deserted. “Sora?”

“Yes.” His voice came from behind the door. 

She stepped around it to look at him. “What are you—?” 

Kale grabbed her. His hands were like burning-hot pokers, digging deep into her shoulders and pulling her irrevocably against his hot chest. She could feel no heartbeat behind those ribs. He put his lips against the back of her neck, nipping lightly with his teeth.

“K-Kale,” Kairi gasped. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t answer to that anymore.”

“What?”

“I’m not Kale anymore. I don’t need that name anymore.”

Kairi shivered even though the heat of his body was burning through his clothes. “What do you mean?”

“After I use you to make the Light One unlock me, all my powers will return. Then, I will get my blood-payment.” He breathed in the scent of her flesh. “It’s been too long.”

“Blood-payment?” she croaked.

“Yes,” he crooned and lapped at her neck again, putting teeth that felt shockingly sharp to her pounding pulse. 

Kairi tried to pull away, but he only tightened his grip on her shoulders. 

“It is my right to have one life from this family. I couldn’t have sweet Namine.”

“Namine?”

The monster posing behind Kale’s façade—Sora’s face—grinned against her throat and said, “The bitch jumped.”

Kairi’s heart lurched into her throat. “Jumped?” she whispered.

Abruptly, he bit her fiercely and hot blood rolled down her chest. Kairi let out a scream and tore viciously away from him, managing to ram her elbow into his ribcage fiercely. She stumbled over Namine’s hibiscus-shaped rug and went sprawling on her hands and knees. She looked desperately back at him, trying to figure out what the Hell was going on. He was towering down behind her, grinning broadly from ear to ear with a mouth full of broken-glass teeth. Those golden eyes of his glowed like lanterns, full of flames.

“Yes, jumped.”

Kairi’s mouth fell open and she stared hopelessly up at him. 

“Once I get my hands on your cute little boyfriend, once I take his blood, I will be able to unleash all the fury of Hell onto Earth!”

“My boyfriend? Riku?!”

He grinned. “No, you stupid twit, that man could never love you more than he loves himself. I need pure blood, the blood of the righteous and innocent and selfless. Sora’s blood, you stupid girl.”

“Sora?” she whispered. Butterflies of fear took root in her ribcage. Her dream rushed back to her—Vanitas’s teeth on Sora’ white throat, the spurting blood from a torn jugular, death. “No…”

“Oh yes, he still loves you and that is what will free me. His blood will break Mayu’s seal on me once and for all, but first…” He lunged down on Kairi, grabbing her by her wrists and pinning them to the floor. She suddenly realized that he was much stronger than he looked and her escape earlier had been nothing. He had let her go. He had been playing with her. “I need you hopeless!”

She screamed. “Kale! Kale, let me go, please! Let me go!”

He slapped her across the face, so hard that she felt her jaw crack and her teeth snapped together. 

She let out a cry of pain and squirmed beneath his body.

“I’m not Kale. That sniveling human façade was to get your sister to weaken so I could kill her. It didn’t work on her and it didn’t work on you either,” he snarled in her face. His teeth were filling his mouth to the brim, stretching his jaws so that the flesh of his cheeks split and tore. “I am Vanitas!”

Kairi cried out in hopeless fear as his entire face, inches from her own, morphed and dissolved into nothingness. Then, it became the most frightening thing she had ever seen in her life—it was everything she feared and nothing all at once. 

She screamed. 

She screamed like she was dying. 

She screamed for Sora.

…

The day was already hung heavy with storm clouds, promising rain, and the ocean was a sheet of gunmetal-grey lashing water. Hung on his cross, seven-year-old Sora was crying his rain-tears from those beautiful eyes. (That was why they had decided on him, because of those sky-colored eyes that went straight to God. Maybe the Devil would appreciate the slaughter of one of God’s angels.) The fanatics had waited until his wonderful parents left for work, crept into the house cloaked in shadows, and stolen him away. They had chloroformed him rather than knocking him out because they wanted him in perfect condition for his execution.

Sora woke up on the cross. He had been tied there, arms spread and his shoulders dislocated from his sagging unsupported weight. He cried out with the pain that each small breath brought him, but he couldn’t stop breathing. He couldn’t die any faster. 

At the foot of the cross, seemingly so far away from him, the cult had gathered. They were not the typical cult—robed in black and faceless amassed together. No, they were dressed normally, reflecting the normal lives they led—doctors, lawyers, soccer coaches, lifeguards, parents, grandparents… The adults of the island had turned to the oldest tradition long ago, back when the Disease took the islands, but Sora didn’t know that then and he didn’t know that now.

He just knew that he was crucified. 

He just knew that he was going to die.

He cried and waited for his parents to save him, if they could. 

They could and they did.

He was still hanging there when his mother drove her station wagon to the tops of the cliffs so perfectly that it would give James Bond a run for his money. His mother and his father both leaped from the car. His father was brandishing a shotgun and his mother held two steak knives. They were prepared to kill!

“Let him down!” his mother screamed.

“You let our boy down!” his father shouted.

The cult far outnumbered his parents, even with his father’s gun for the magazine only held so many bullets. They turned as one, a sea of normalcy but so terrible underneath the glowing façade. The sea crashed against the black cliffs, sounding angry, and thunder crashed overhead in the deep blackness. 

Behind them, Sora towered on his cross, hurt and terrified. “Mom!” he sobbed. “Dad!”

“So nice of you to join us, Mr. and Mrs. Strife. It wouldn’t be a party without you,” one of the fanatics said sweetly. It was the woman who cut everyone’s hair.

“You let him down! What are you thinking?!” Sora’s mother demanded.

“The fish are gone. If the fish don’t come back, we will all die. The Dark Lord demands a sacrifice! An innocent pure sacrifice!” The butcher, still wearing his bloodied apron, shouted.

“And your son looks like one of God’s own angels. Surely, the fish will come back if we do this!” The apothecary continued, clapping and smiling. “We will all be saved. The Dark Lord always answers our prayers, unlike—” his face filled with scorn “—unlike your God!”

“The Dark Lord? You mean, Satan?”

“He is the true God,” the butcher said sharply. “He has never abandoned us. He has always answered out prayers! Just look!” He turned, gesturing to Sora hanging on the cross, and a fork of lightning split the sky behind the awful sight. At the base of the cross, one hideous arm reached up over the edge of the cliffs, terrible claws digging deep into the earth as the monster heaved itself up from the pit of Hell. “He always answers! He is the true God!”

“Why?” Sora’s father asked. “Why would you believe that?!”

“The Disease,” the cult answered as one. 

Sora let out a sob, writhing in agony on his cross. “Daddy, help me…”

“Let our son go,” Sora’s mother ordered. 

“We need him for the ritual. He needs to die so the fish will return.”

“If your Dark Lord is so great, why does he demand death?” Sora’s father demanded.

“All great deeds deserve a reward,” the hairdresser said sweetly. “This is our God’s reward for always coming through. We send him one of God’s angels to Hell!”

“Mommy!”

Sora’s parents glanced at each other, so much conveyed in a single glance. They couldn’t hope to fight the entire cult gathered here. They could leave now, abandon their son, or they could try to fight and they would all die or they could… They nodded slowly and wordlessly dropped their weapons. The gun and knives clattered together on the grass and reflected the forking lightning trapped in the blackness of the storm. 

“Let Sora go. You can have us.”

The leaders of the cult—the butcher and the sweet hairdresser—exchanged glances. Then, they gazed up at Sora. By now, with his crying and his face distorted by pain, he looked less like and angel, but his parents… standing there together, holding hands. They looked so small and frail and delectably perfect!

“Alright,” the hairdresser said. “We will release the boy, but you must die in his place. Both of you.”

His parents nodded.

“Jump into the sea,” the butcher ordered. 

“Mom! Dad!” Sora begged as the neared the edge. His rain-tears dripped from his smooth cheeks, landing on the ground so far away.

They looked up and him and his mother smiled through her tears. “We love you, Sora, baby,” his father said. Then, as smoothly as two birds taking off, they plunged over the cliffs. Because of the sound of the waves, Sora didn’t hear their bodies breaking on the rocks below, but he remembered looking at their battered faces on the coroner’s autopsy table. He had never asked why they had died or even how… because he knew all along and he didn’t want to remember.

X X X

Confusion? Everyone making the connections yet? There’s only really one big revelation left and that is how this all started (The Disease)! Not sure when this is going to end though. Everyone’s all over the place. I need to get everyone back together! *breaks out whistle*

Oh, because I know everyone’s going to whine about why Sora ‘just suddenly’ remembered how his parents died. Ever heard of a repressed memory? Well, most of the time, they un-repress later in time at some point. Sora’s memory coming back right now was a nice happy coincidence, yes? He remembers just when he needs to! So there!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	14. Someone's at the Door

And it kind of heats up this chapter. So, if you’re wearing a hat, hang on to it! 

I feel like there was something else I wanted to say, but I can’t remember what it was now… Oh well!

X X X

The floor was cold and hard against Kairi’s back. The glow-in-the-dark stars on her sister’s ceiling looked bleak and cracked. The rug was rough against her face and the warm breeze fluttered the curtains. For a moment, she pictured her beautiful Namine standing there on the sill, poised to jump, ready to die. Had she looked back? Had she hesitated? But it didn’t matter and she would never know. Namine was dead, already dead. Nothing would bring her back. No helping hand would reach out to pull her back from the ledge of the abyss. But Kairi could still be saved… if she moved fast enough, if she tried hard enough, if she fought back, if, if, if… 

Kairi didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Could she fight off this monster wearing Sora’s face, Kale or Vanitas, whatever he called himself? Could she fight him? Could she even hurt him? Could she get away? Could she anything? 

“No,” Vanitas whispered against the shell of her ear. “You’re just a stupid little girl. Not even half of your sister. You can’t hope to fight me off.”

She sobbed, eyes burning with tears. Desperately, she dug her legs into his thighs, trying to push him off, but he was pressed irrevocably against her body. The heat of him was starting to burn through her clothes. She felt as if she was melting, flesh sliding off her bones. 

“Please, let me go,” she sobbed.

Vanitas grinned, his nightmare face inches from her own, golden eyes drilling deep into her heart. “Do you know I fucked your sister? Right here on this very floor. I pushed her down and tore into her. Her screams were the sweetest I had ever heard, but I had to muffle them with my dick. I couldn’t have anyone coming to help her.”

Kairi choked. “You-you raped my sister?!” Namine’s beautiful innocent white face flashed through her mind’s eye—smiling, tending her garden, laughing, running along the beach, pulling pranks on Sora. Beautiful Namine and this monster had raped her!

With a scream, Kairi slammed her forehead into what might have been Vanitas’s nose, but it was hard to tell in his mottled twisted face. Either way, she heard a satisfying crack and he released one of her wrists to press a hand to his damaged face. Kairi clawed his face, tore at his golden eyes, ripped at his throat, with that freed hand. Reeling, Vanitas jolted off of her, staggering unsteadily as fresh undamaged eyes popped out all over his face. They all focused on Kairi. 

“You bitch!” His voice had turned deadly, filed with thousands of shrieking screams of other people and animals and monsters. It made Kairi’s blood run cold.

Desperately, she backed up to her sister’s open window. She had hoped to find a weapon on the desk—an artistic razor blade that Namine sometimes used to use on dried acrylic or a putty knife for her sculpting—but no such luck. The desk had been wiped clean, supplies boxed and filed away somewhere. Kairi didn’t have time to check every drawer or even glance at a different spot. 

Vanitas was advancing on her.

“What do you want from me?” she begged him. 

“My right!” he screamed in that awful voice that came right up form a shaft of Hell. “I want your life! It is my right for being raised! I will destroy this family!” 

Her knees hit the sill of the window and she glanced out. The wrought-iron fence Namine had died on looked like a row of teeth ready to devour her. She felt sick. No, she couldn’t jump. She would die, just like Namine did. She practically felt Namine’s ghost go shrieking through her, screaming as she fell and was impaled on the spikes of that awful fence. 

“Why?” Kairi pleaded, trying to buy more time.

Vanitas grinned. “Because I am going to destroy this place! I’m going to unleash Hell on Earth, on all these people!” He lunged for her and his hot hands just brushed her wrist, but Kairi was a speck faster. 

She scrambled backwards, grabbed the sill of the window, swung herself out, and hung there like a decoration. Over her head, Vanitas went crashing through the window and she heard a crunch as his body was impaled on the fence. Quickly, Kairi dropped down and landed in her sister’s dying flowerbeds, crushing the remaining blossoms. She hoped against hope that the faceless monster was dead, but she knew it was too good to be true. Sure enough, Vanitas was impaled on the fence, spikes embedded in his chest, but he wasn’t dead. He was slowly straightening and heaving himself off of the impalement. The sound of his body was awful and Kairi wanted to just lie down in her dead sister’s flowers with her hands over her ears. But she couldn’t do that. 

She had to warn Sora. After all, Vanitas was coming after him next—for his blood!

Kairi staggered to her feet, flowers and mulch still clinging to her as if she was a zombie fresh from the grave, and ran into the street, putting her home and the monster at her back though she was loathe to not be watching him. But he did not tear free of the fence, inhuman monster or not and quickly pursue her at impossible speed. It seemed that he was trapped for the moment regardless by his injuries and the wrought-iron fence. 

Instead and maybe worse, those awful voices of his chased her down the road as he crooned endlessly, “Just die, pretty Kairi. It’ll be over faster if you do it yourself. If I get you, I’ll destroy you. Just die, pretty Kairi, just die!”

…

Sora woke with a start, still trapped in the lingering memory of his dream. For a moment, he was unsure what had woken him. Then the sound came again—a knock at the door. He sat up, disoriented by the sight of his parents’ room. Then, all the details of his long-forgotten memory came crashing back to him. He lurched to his feet, ran to the bathroom, and vomited. His parents had died to save him, to save him from being a cult’s sacrifice. 

Destiny Island’s cult… The Disease… 

More things that were tantalizingly out of reach. Sora almost wondered if it was better that they stayed that way. In reality, Namine was dead and Kale was a demon named Vanitas. But even if Sora destroyed Vanitas as great cost to himself and whoever helped him, what was the point? It wouldn’t bring Namine back. It wouldn’t change anything that had already happened. 

No one would come back… No one would get off the cross…

The knock came again, louder and more insistent. Shivering with sickness chills, Sora scraped himself off cold tile floor of his parents’ bathroom, trying not to look at his father’s razors or his mother’s creams on the vanity. He hurried to his front door, pulling it open to the strangest sight his eyes had even beheld.

There was the dark-haired girl—Namine’s friend, Xion, if he remembered correctly—and the young man who had spoken at Namine’s funeral—Roxas. Actually, there were two identical young men. One, bloodied and gasping for breath, was hanging across Xion’s narrow shoulders while the other hung back like a threatened animal. 

Not sure what to do, Sora handled the situation as his mother had taught him. “Hi,” he said with a cheery open smile. “Please, come in. Would you like some cookies?”

For a moment, the four of them just stared at each other. Sora couldn’t believe those womanly words had come out of his mouth while Xion seemed to be thinking something along the same lines. It everyone’s credit, they smiled uneasily and Xion finally nodded. A few minutes later, Sora had everyone comfortably seated at his kitchen table with glasses of milk and a plate of Oreos. He had fetched an icepack for the injured Roxas, still unsure exactly which was which. Xion, thankfully, quickly introduced everyone. 

“In case you don’t remember, I’m Xion, a friend of Namine’s.”

Sora nodded. “I remember you. The girl at the fence,” he said.

She smiled uneasily. “Yeah, that’s me, lurking at the barred gates of the old Blackheart house.”

“Old Blackheart house—?”

She cut him off. “This is Roxas, whom you’ve met before,” she gestured to the injured young man who had spoken at Namine’s funeral. “And Ventus, his twin brother,” she waved her hand to the uninjured trapped-animal twin with his roving blue eyes. “We need to talk to you about Kale.”

“About Kale—?”

She cut him off again. “Listen, Kale is not the sweet young man he looks like.” The she began talking fast with must gesturing and angry fist-pounding on the table, causing the milk in her glass to tremble. “He’s a monster, a demon. His real name is Vanitas, the faceless creature from Hell!” She slammed her hand down on the table and an Oreo jumped off her plate. It slid across the table, leaving a trail of black crumbs, and landed in Ventus’s lap. 

Ventus jumped like a small child struck and Roxas slid his hand across his twin’s arm, smiling softly. “It’s okay, Ven,” Roxas said softly. 

“Sora, listen, he’s a monster and we need to stop him!”

Sora was still caught with his mouth half open from when she had interrupted him earlier. Now, he reached across the table and put a hand to her mouth. “Can I talk?”

She nodded, blue eyes narrowed.

Sora lowered his hand and sat back in his chair. “I know Kale isn’t Kale,” he said plainly. When he didn’t protest what she had said, Xion relaxed in her chair, patiently listening to him. “He’s Vanitas and he’s wearing my face.”

“He can’t exactly wear your face,” she interjected.

“What do you mean? He looks just like me.”

Xion shook her head. “No, there’s something about you. The hair and the eyes. Vanitas couldn’t recreate those regardless of his powers.”

“Why would that be?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Sora stared at her for a long moment. 

Then, she asked, “How come you already knew about Vanitas?”

“I caught him snooping through Namine’s bookshelf and I found her diary. Honestly, I read it and I found everything out.”

“Namine kept a diary of everything we did?”

Sora nodded.

Xion swore, slamming her hands down on the table. “Damn it! No wonder Vanitas was one step ahead of us! He must have been reading all of our plans in her diary! Damn it!”

Ventus started to shiver pathetically and Roxas put his arm around his twin.

“Is he alright?” Sora asked Roxas, giving Xion a moment to collect herself.

Roxas nodded. “Yeah, he’s just having trouble coming back around.”

“Coming around?”

“Our parents use him to channel and control demons. He won’t be himself for a little while longer yet. Then, he’ll be alright again, right, Ven?”

Ventus only blinked at him as if seeing Roxas for the first time. 

Roxas hugged him gently. “Even so, it’s good to have him back.”

Ventus made a small animal sound and his eyes flashed deep golden before reverting to blue. 

Then, a blob of writhing black dropped down from the rafters and landed with a splat on the kitchen table. The glasses of milk went spilling like white blood. It was sort of like a rat—low-slung and vaguely rat-shaped, but there the resemblance ended and the horror began. Its flesh was completely tar-black and almost appeared to ooze and glimmer as it crouched there on the table. It had a twisted little face with big yellow fangs and beady yellow lantern-like eyes, its paws were more like tapered claws that scratched at the table, and it’s tale was curled and tipped with a scorpion’s stinger. 

Immediately, Sora and Xion leaped up from their chairs, stumbling backwards. Roxas sucked in a breath of surprise, hissing in pain a moment later form his sudden movement. Ventus sat perfectly still, gazing at the disgusting creature in abject fascination as if he had never seen one before. 

It looked around the table, saw Roxas, took a step towards him, and then saw Ventus. Sora could swear he saw the hideous beast grin and it shot across the table to the young man. It launched itself onto Ventus’s chest, digging those little claws into his chest through his shirt. Ventus made that hopeless animal sound again, a keening whine of pure terror.

“No!” Roxas screamed. 

“Get back!” Xion shouted. She grabbed for some suitable weapon, but could find nothing nearby save the scissors Sora had used to cut open the package of Oreos. By the time she had them in her hand, Sora was already way ahead of her. 

Sora grabbed a butcher knife from the knife-block, jumped onto the table, grabbed the terrible beast with one hand, and tore it away from Ventus. It let out a screech that made his ears bleed, writhing and howling in Sora’s grip. Without remorse, Sora slammed the thing down hard on the table and stabbed the butcher knife through it. 

“That won’t do it!” Xion shouted to him. “They come back! We need to get out of here!”

But, strangely, the creature continued to cry and writhe and its black little body slowly dissolved beginning at the edges of the knife. Within moments, there was only a puddle of blackness where the little beast had been. Then, that was gone too and the butcher knife was stabbed proudly into the table.

“Y… You killed it?” Xion whispered. 

Sora pulled the knife from the table and looked at it curiously. “I guess so… Why?”

“They never die,” Xion repeated. “They always come back. They come back to life with even more rage and power. It’s like death only strengthens them.”

For a moment, they all stood silently staring up at the ceiling, but no more creatures appeared and the one Sora had killed on the table did not come back. Sora even looked under the table for it, but there was not even a stain where its twisted body had dissolved. 

“Why did it die for you?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Sora said and slipped the knife into the sink with a clatter. 

“It… it’s you…!” 

Everyone turned to face Ventus. 

“What do you mean, Ven?” Roxas asked, but his twin ignored him. 

Ventus reached out and gently gripped Sora’s hands across the table. His blue eyes practically glowed. “It’s you. You’re the one,” he whispered in an awed little voice. “They’re waiting for you. They’re looking for you. They’re afraid of you…”

“Afraid of me?” Sora repeated. 

Ventus nodded almost eagerly. “Yes…” he breathed.

“Why?” Sora asked. 

“Yeah, Ven, why?” Roxas murmured.

“Because… you can kill their monsters. You can kill their demons.”

“What?” Xion demanded.

“Why?” Sora asked softly.

“You’re a Person of Light. You’re righteous. You’re pure. You can stop them, only you… Hell can’t touch you,” Ventus whispered. “None of the powers of Hell can touch you!”

“Can’t touch me?” Sora repeated. 

“Yes. They said someone was sacrificed to save you and you’re protected by them from the other side.”

“Sacrifice?” Sora choked out, remembering his parents as they threw themselves over the cliffs to save him. He still felt the rough wood of the cross against his back, the agony in his shoulders, the chill blowing off the sea. Were his parents watching over him from the next world, protecting him? Was that possible?

Ventus nodded. “And you are righteous in your own right. You have a pure soul. You love truly and would die for your love.”

Sora wet his lips, thinking of Kairi.

Ventus stared eagerly into his face, almost smiling. He was like a child who had discovered that superheroes were real and had just met his favorite one.

“What about…” Sora hesitated. “What is The Disease?”

“The Disease?” Roxas repeated and clutched at his side. 

Ventus blinked at Sora, lowered his eyes, and whispered, “I don’t know.”

Sora sat down beside Xion where she was stroking the wound in the table. Across from him, Roxas was gazing at him with a strange hopeful look in his eyes. Ventus still looked like a small terrified animal, like something hunted and in danger. They all stared at each other, unsure of what to do from here. Even if Sora could kill these monsters, could he kill Vanitas? Could he do anything to help? To save them? To save Namine before she slipped completely away?

Then, a cold voice sliced through the room. “Well, well, what have we here?”

X X X

Well, who do think was at the door?! Could be anybody really…

Questions, comments, concerns?


	15. The Old Blackheart House

I’ve been such a lazy writer lately. It’s because I’m working on so much stuff right now and I’m starting to play favorites. Once I get through this chapter, I should be back to my old self. I know how much everyone likes it that I update so fast.

X X X

Richard Blackheart was standing on the other side of the door, arms crossed over his chest and grinning maliciously. Sora felt a chill go down his spine even though Rick had always been to kind to him. He dug his fingers into the door and forced a smile. Memories flooded and assaulted him. 

_Standing at the base of his cross on the cliffs, part of the black damaging cult like an army of insects at his feet, preparing to eat him up, to sacrifice him, Deirdre and Richard Blackheart stood. Deirdre’s dark hair was windswept by the cool ocean stormy breeze like a cloud of smoke around her head and Rick was carrying a shotgun at his side like an extension of his arm. He was more than prepared to gun down Sora’s parents, blow them full of holes, and he would enjoy every minute of it. They both wore sick smiles on their faces that had always been so kind and inviting._

He remembered Xion and Roxas’s voices in Namine’s room when she jumped that night. Suddenly, Rick’s story of how he found his daughter didn’t add up. He hadn’t been in her room because he would have seen Xion and Roxas and he hadn’t said anything about them, just what Namine had said. And there was so much blood on that wrought-iron fence. Namine had been lying on it for a long time, gravity bleeding her body dry. He had also said Namine’s last words were ‘The one with Sora’s face,’ but if he hadn’t been there, he must have known about Kale. Maybe he had even known that Kale was a monster, a faceless demon. With those words, he might have been trying to cast blame on Sora, trick Kairi into hating him or being suspicious of her old boyfriend, play them against each other, or some other unknown motive. Either way…

Rick was a liar!

And he was a danger!

The realization must have played out on Sora’s face because he went to slam the door, lock it, and bar Rick from his house, but Rick already had his foot in the threshold, preventing it from closing. He grinned at Sora cruelly and shoved the door open with his shoulder on the wood. Sora crashed backwards, thrown down by Rick’s substantial weight on the other side. His head bounced off the hardwood floor and, for a moment, he saw stars.

“Sora!” Xion shouted. She bolted to her feet, knocked over her chair with a crash, and dove for her backpack where she had her gun—well, her father’s gun—hidden. To protect her friends, she was prepared to kill without a second thought. 

Roxas was the only one still seated. Ventus was on his feet beside his twin, quivering, with those blue eyes of his so wide they looked like windows. 

“Shut up, you stupid girl,” Rick snarled and put his foot on Sora’s chest, holding him down. 

Sora gasped for breath desperately and grabbed a hold of Rick’s leg with both hands, trying to heave him off. Even so, he couldn’t budge Kairi’s father or even wriggle loose. He was trapped—trapped like a rat!—or pinned like a frog for dissection. 

Xion stopped with her fingers inches from her backpack strap, surveying the situation. What could she do? “Get off of him!” she shouted. Ventus was useless, still trapped half-in and half-out of his body. Roxas couldn’t help her either. He was far too injured. Xion bit her lip, cursing. “Get the fuck off of him!”

Rick chuckled. “Don’t worry, little girl. I’m not going to kill him. I need him,” he said and leered down at Sora who was still pinned like a butterfly to a decorative board. “The blood of a Person of Light, of a righteous man, will release our Lord. The true Lord!”

“You don’t honestly think you’ll be able to control Satan, do you?” Xion snapped and barked a laugh. “You’re stupid!”

Rick snarled at her, animalistic. “No, you’re stupid! Xion, you little interference. I wish you could be sacrificed!” He took a deep breath, composing himself. “Oh, we can control the powers of Hell. We’ve been doing it with your little friends right there—” he pointed savagely at Roxas and Ventus, more stabbing his finger at them. “We’ve gotten Ventus to do some lovely things. Haven’t we, Ventus?”

Ventus shivered desperately, digging his fingers into Roxas’s shoulders. Roxas made a small sound of pain, but did not push Ventus away. Instead, he clutched his twin’s cold hand. Xion stretched for her backpack, heart pounding. Beneath Rick’s foot, Sora coughed and heaved. He couldn’t get in a deep enough breath.

“And what do you think will happen when you ‘release the Beast’?” Xion demanded, prodding purposefully at Rick. “Do you think you can just ask him to destroy the world or whatever sick plot you have in mind and he’ll be happy to do that for you?”

Rick laughed—a deep belly laugh of pure delight at her.

Xion felt her blood run cold. 

“Stupid stupid little Xion… always protesting and interfering and never stopping to listen,” he laughed. “The Blackheart family has been friends—close endearing friends—with our true Lord for centuries. You could even say it was us who introduced Destiny Islands to the true God.”

Xion bit her lip. What could she do? Sora was still pinned and Ventus had slumped to a shivering heap at Roxas’s feet. 

Then, from outside came a terrible scream—pain and fear and struggle. Only Rick did not react and a moment later, Deirdre appeared in the threshold behind him. She had fistful of Kairi’s blood colored hair, dragging her remaining daughter along behind her cruelly. 

“Hey, darling, did I miss anything?” she asked and tucked her sheet of night-black hair behind her ear.

“No, love, only some delightful stupidity. I will tell you all about it later tonight while we are in bed,” Rick said and leaned over to kiss her. “Where did you find dear Kairi, sweetie?”

“Running down the road on her way here,” Deirdre said cheerily. “She tried to tell me some ridiculous story about Namine’s sweet Kale being a monster! About how he attacked and tried to kill her and that she had to jump out the window to escape.” She laughed, throwing her head back. “She was incredibly easy to catch, like a hysterical fish that just jumped in the boat.”

“Why are you doing this?” Kairi shrieked. She was clutching at her hair with both hands, but Deirdre shook her cruelly. 

“I’m sure your father was just telling your stupid friends, dear. Why don’t you ask him?” 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Rick said. “You’ll all find out soon enough.”

Xion dove for her backpack, shoved her hand inside, produced her father’s gun, and squeezed off a shot all in one motion. 

Deirdre released Kairi, shrieking in shock, and the girl crashed to the floor beside Sora, whimpering in anguish. Sora turned his face to her, whispering even though it was still hard to breathe. Rick almost stepped back from Sora, but halted at the last moment, grinning.

“Get the fuck away from them or, I swear to God, I’ll shoot you!” Xion shouted and put both hands around the gun to hold it steady. “Get back! I swear to God, I’ll fucking shoot you!”

“Oh, Xion, you should swear to something better,” a warm voice whispered. Then, there was a breath of hot air against her back and the world suddenly felt hushed. She whirled, bringing the gun around in an arch and ready to test whether or not bullets would kill one of these creatures from Hell where nothing else she had tried had been able to. But she never got the chance. There was a terrible blow to the back of her neck and then her entire world went pitch-black. 

…

The last rays of dusty sunlight streamed in through the cracks of the boarded-up windows. The still air was hung with a curtain of dust motes that caught the light and a chill was seeping up through the floorboards. There was a four-poster bed set up against one wall, draped with velvet curtains and spider webs. The mattress sagging fiercely, but still made up with a pink rose bedspread and a few lace pillows. There was a scarred vanity and a low dresser with a stained mirror above it. The hardwood floor was littered with dust-bunnies, a single half of a China plate, a shattered crystal glass, a wooden chair that must have once been at the vanity table, a few scattered pages of some torn book, and the head of a porcelain doll that stared out with expressionless glass eyes. 

Xion woke up lying on the floor with her arms tied behind her back. Her face was pressed into the floor and her entire back was throbbing from whatever that blow had been that knocked her out. Actually, everything hurt. She felt like she had been hit by a bus, dragged, smeared across the pavement, and then dumped here from three-stories up.

Sitting cross-legged beside her, arms tied behind his back as well, was Roxas. Ventus was on his feet, clear-headed and powerful again, but also bound securely. The last vestiges of his demonic possession had left him. He was hurling himself at the door over and over again, trying to break them out. 

Gasping and struggling, Xion managed to sit up. Roxas tried to help her by nudging her with his shoulder, half-supporting her even though his hands were bound and he was hurt. Finally, she got her legs into Indian-style-position, sat upright, and looked around the room. 

“Oww,” she moaned and then asked, “What happened?” 

Ventus stopped his banging and turned to face them when he heard her voice. His eyes were bright, clever, and very blue—not a trace of demon gold in them. He glanced over her as if deciding whether or not they need his help and apparently decided they didn’t because went back to throwing himself at the door.

“Vanitas showed up. He’s the one who knocked you out. Deirdre and Rick put your gun to Sora’s head, tied us all up, shoved us in their car, and drove us up here.”

“Where are we?” She knew the answer, but she hoped she was wrong. Dead-wrong…

“Where do you think?” Roxas replied, confirming her suspicion. 

She glowered at him, but it was half-hearted. Fear was blooming in her chest, a smothering and choking fear that made it hard to breathe. “Where’re Kairi and Sora?” 

He stared at her hard, beautiful blue eyes dark. “Where do you think?”

“Shit!” she swore.

Ventus turned away from them and hurled himself at the firmly-locked door again. The sound of his body striking the door reverberated through bedroom of the old Blackheart house. Within minutes, the last rays of sunlight vanished from the boarded windows and they might have been alone in the dark room. 

…

Kairi and Sora were trapped in pitch-blackness, struggling, bound tightly. Sora knocked his face into the rim of a table, swore, and then softly apologized. Kairi was having much of the same problem. She had found several unknown objects with her face, but Sora had found far more. He must have been bleeding, but she couldn’t tell in the dark. Finally, she found him in the blind-abyss and leaned firmly against him. 

“Sora, stop,” she said. “We’re not going to get out of here like this. We should wait, save our strength, you know.”

Sora pulled away from her warm body. “Kairi, if they get a hold of my blood, they’re going to unlock the Gates of Hell. I’m not sure what that means, but, on principal, I don’t want it to happen.” He didn’t mention his memory—the death of his parents or his crucifixion—because he still wasn’t exactly sure what to make of all this. 

“I know,” she whispered. He heard her sob in the darkness, hysterically. “Would this have all happened if I had stayed?”

“What?”

“This is all my fault! If I had only stayed here with you and Namine! Namine would have had me to help her! She would have had you! She would have had both of us and I would have had you! This wouldn’t be happening if I had only stayed! It’s all my fault!”

Sora brushed his shoulder against hers, soothing and warm as he had always been. Kairi buried her face in his back, sobbing her broken heart out. She wished she could hug him, hold him, feel him holding her, just like they used to… back when they were together. She thought of Riku, but she didn’t care anymore. She wanted Sora. She needed him! He was her best friend, her most trusted ally. 

“It’s not your fault,” he whispered and nuzzled her. “How could you have known?”

Kairi sobbed, hiccupping and choking on her tears. “If I had stayed—”

Sora cut her off. “Kai, this isn’t the time. I need you. Come on, I need you to be like you used to. Remember? Ready to jump, Kai? I’ll catch you,” he whispered.

She giggled, but it was a sick sad sound through her tears. He had said those same words to her when encouraging her to jump the waterfall with him. Sora, bolder and braver than she could ever hope to be, had jumped first and looked like he had enjoyed it more than anything. But Kairi hadn’t wanted to jump. She had been afraid. Sora had called up to her, smiling and laughing and cooing reassurances. Eventually, after endless patience, Kairi did jump down to him and he did catch her. That was the trust they used to share, the old bond between them. It was a bond she could never hope to have with Riku, Kairi realized. 

Even now, if given the choice between jumping down to Sora or Riku, she would choose Sora. 

And, in a life-or-death situation like this, Sora won out again.

She nodded in the dark and asked, “What do you need me to do?”

Sora made a small sound in his chest, a happy sound. “Untie me,” he said.

Kairi b it her lip, groped for him in the dark, and finally found his slender wrists. The flesh was ragged and damp with blood. He had been trying very hard to free himself. After a moment, she clawed the ropes loose and Sora slipped free. He was just reaching for her when the door eased open, bringing with it a small beam of light and unbelievable darkness.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

You are all being bad reviewers again so REVIEW!


	16. The Origin and The Disease

EDIT: I edited this entire story! But it’s not really necessary to re-read everything. I didn’t make any major changes, just smoothed over the rumpled parts where I had no clue what I was doing—you know, Vanitas’s power’s returning with death of Kairi’s family, Hell opening, Namine’s death, the ritual they tried to perform to seal him up, all the weird ‘powers’ things that was going on in my plot. Essentially, I gave Vanitas the ability to open Hell to smooth over the wrinkles and make a little more sense. He has all of his powers right now except for his ability to open the Gates of Hell. To regain that power, he needs Sora’s blood. And I think that’s all I changed and ironed out…

So, if you notice small changes in what you thought was happening as you read, that would be why! 

WARNING: mega-God stuff in this chapter. Get over it.

X X X

The cult swept into the basement like a sea of black water. Leading them was Vanitas with his golden eyes glowing like the twin beams of a flashlight. Shadows darted and skipped through the blackness and Sora jumped to his feet, lunging for the demon. Vanitas lifted his hand effortlessly, as if expecting that to stop Sora. Sure enough, Sora plowed the monster over and they both went grappling across the floor. Vanitas’s eyes widened in surprise and he quickly changed his face and body to all sorts of nightmarish shapes. None affected Sora. Finally, Rick and another man grabbed Sora by his arms and yanked the young man to his feet. 

Vanitas quickly stood up, whirled on one of the followers, and raised his hand again. This time, the woman went flying backwards as if she had been hit by a truck. Her body broke on the wall with an awful crack and she lay very still. Vanitas turned back to Sora, who was leaning forward with his teeth bared like some kind of animal. Without batting an eye, Vanitas struck Sora hard across the face. The sound was like gunshot in the silence. 

Kairi gasped, but Sora didn’t make a sound.

“I see,” Vanitas said coolly and pushed a hand through his night-dark hair. “A Person of Light, a righteous man… and here I thought they were just exaggerating. I wasn’t aware that people like you still existed in this fucked up world.”

Sora snarled. “Let her go! You can keep me, but let her go!”

Vanitas grinned. “Wonderful,” he said. “Get the girl. We’ll need her.”

“For what?” someone asked. 

He glanced back, bright eyes pinning Kairi like searchlights. “Because, you fools, do you expect someone like him to do anything if we only threaten him?”

There was silence. 

“Exactly,” Vanitas said. “He’s righteous. He’ll only do what I want if I threaten the girl.” He caressed Kairi’s face and she shivered. Then, he leaned in on Kairi and whispered inches from her face, “It’s a good thing he still loves you.”

Her indigo eyes widened and her heart thundered. 

“Oh yes.” Vanitas looked at Sora as he was dragged from the room. “He still loves you. Make no mistake, girl, and you still love him.” Then, he dragged Kairi to her feet and shoved her after Sora. Stumbling, she desperately followed. To the remaining people, Vanitas said, “Stay here. Only five may go into the Pit.”

A murmur went through the remaining cult members. Vanitas swept out of the basement, closed the door, and deftly locked it. He grinned to himself as a small animal cry reared up in the darkness behind him, behind that locked door. The presence of Sora, a righteous man, had kept the creatures at bay, but they would readily devour the dark souls of the cult. He listened happily to the sound of the mortal fools screaming in agony as whatever monster was inside tore them apart. 

Rick, Deirdre, Sora, Kairi, and the man who had grabbed Sora were waiting at the end of the hall upstairs. Rick had both hands around Sora’s upper arms, holding him in a death-grip. Deirdre had one hand on her remaining daughter’s shoulder. They both knew what those screams meant and were grinning. The other man, on the other hand, was pale and shaking.

“What was that?” the unknown man asked in a small quivering voice.

Vanitas lifted his hand and effortlessly killed him. 

Kairi let out a small scream as the body crumpled at her feet, blood spreading in a puddle, and Deirdre hit her across the face. 

Sora lunged at her, but Rick yanked him back. “Let her go!” Sora shouted. 

Vanitas smiled, showing row after row of sharp teeth. “Let’s go. Our lord is waiting,” he said to Deirdre and Rick. “He’s ready to be released. I am ready to open the Gates.” 

Richard and Deirdre Blackheart smiled at the monster wearing Sora Strife’s face. 

…

In the hospital, Riku Wise was sitting up in his white bed. He was reading a magazine absently, flipping page after page without really seeing what he was reading. He was thinking about Kairi and her sweet Sora. He was worried about her, about what she was getting herself into. He was worried about his beautiful slender model-girlfriend taking on a monster like Vanitas-Kale. What if she was killed? What if she died like Namine? He gazed out the window at the deep dark swirling clouds above the ocean. 

“Kairi,” he whispered. “Please be okay.”

The lights flickered overhead, crackling and sputtering. Then, abruptly, they went out. 

There was a vicious crack of thunder outside and lightning forked down through the black sky. The ocean was a sheet of rocky waves, lashing and crashing against the distant cliffs where Sora had once been crucified. Rain suddenly poured down in sheets, soaking the sill and gushing in through the open window. 

Riku lurched out of bed, grabbed the window, and heaved it closed. The curtains whipped at his face like stinging tentacles. He winced, but finally got the window firmly shut. The rain only hammered on the glass. Suddenly, it felt unbearably hot in his hospital room, like an oven or Hell.

Riku called out for a nurse, but no one answer him. His throat throbbed. 

He groped through the dimness for his bed. His foot found something hot and slimy beneath his bed and something sharp sank into his toes. With a shriek of surprise and pain, Riku leaped into his bed and clutched at his foot. Blood seeped over his fingers.

Nervously, Riku peered over the edge of the bed. 

Two spots of bright gold stared up at him from the darkness. From beneath his bed, he heard an awful animal cry—a demonic sound that chilled him to the bone. Riku shivered and quickly pressed himself into the sheets. He called out for a nurse again, but no one answered him. He was alone in this darkness, this sliver of Hell. 

…

Deirdre’s white hand touched the soft place on the wall, pushed aside the wallpaper, and pulled the lever. The bookcase slid aside—empty of books and bronze sculptures now—to reveal the deep dark passage that led down, down, down…

“What is that?” Kairi whispered.

“The Pit,” Deirdre said and pushed her down the sloping passage. Then, she followed her daughter into the hot darkness. 

Behind them, Sora struggled. He got his foot on the wall and pushed back against Rick, arching his back and bending in impossible ways. He was acting like a caged animal, desperate to get away. He knew if he escaped, they would have no real use for Kairi. They only needed her to torment him and if he escaped then… 

“Move.” Vanitas’s voice was ice-cold and impatient. 

Rick glanced at Vanitas, grunted, hooked both arms around Sora’s waist, and nothing short of hurled him down the passage after Kairi and Deirdre. Sora slammed into the earthen wall and collapsed o his knees, dazed by the pain in his head. 

“Sora!” Kairi gasped out ahead of him. Deirdre was gripping her tightly, but she was trying to get back to him.

He looked up, stumbled to his feet, and crashed towards her. Rick caught him by his hair and dragged him backwards. Vanitas stepped into the passage, pulled a second lever, and the bookcase slid into place behind them. There should have been complete darkness, all-consuming, but instead the walls themselves radiated a hot hellish glow. Heat was wafting up from somewhere, baking the flesh from everyone’s bones. Only Vanitas seemed completely unbothered. He was practically whistling while he walked.

They descended into the Pit. 

…

Upstairs, Xion craned her neck to see what the hell Roxas was doing. He had been trying to untie her for the past ten minutes. “Would you hurry up?!” she snapped at him. His back was pressed against hers, fingers groping at her bonds and trying to untie her. So far, he hadn’t been very successful.

“Can I help?” Ventus asked. 

“No!” Xion snapped at him and glared at him suspiciously. She still didn’t trust that he was alright and completely on their side, un-possessed that was. 

“We need to get out of here,” Ventus said flatly. “That’ll happen faster if you just trust me.”

“Why should I?” Xion snarled.

“Because I’m like Roxas.”

“You are nothing like Roxas!”

“Xion,” Roxas murmured. 

“No!” she shouted. “Why should we trust him again?!”

“Again?” Ventus said doubtfully. “You trusted me before?”

She lowered her blue eyes. “Yes,” she muttered. “Back when Namine was alive. You had been good all week, free, fighting them you said, but then you came to the beach and took Roxas away from us. We tried to take him from you, get him free, but you hit Namine in the face. By the time I got her up, you were long gone.”

“I was possessed,” Ventus said.

“And that makes it okay?!” she shouted. “I loved you, Ven! I trusted you!”

Stunned, he stared at her.

Roxas finally got her ropes loose and she yanked harshly away from Roxas. Then, she turned sharply away from both of them, rubbing her chaffed wrists. Her face was hidden by her curtain of dark night-black hair and Ventus could see her throat working furiously.

“That doesn’t matter,” she muttered after a long moment. Her voice was cold and bitter. “We have to get out of here. That’s the only thing that matters.”

“Xion—”

“Stay away from me!” Then, Xion hurled herself at the door, but it remained firmly closed. 

Roxas crossed the room to his brother and began to struggle with Ventus’s bonds. He didn’t say anything about what Xion had said and for that, they both were grateful. 

…

The walk was short, far too short, but Sora’s head had cleared by the time they reached the end of the passageway. The only sound was that of Kairi crying and Vanitas’s sick whistling. Deirdre and Rick were silent, awed by the sight before them. They had come to a great cavern, unnaturally carved and unsupported yet somehow standing. In the center was a round gaping maw with a sort of orange-bloody-red glow seeping up from the bottom. At first glance, the hole appeared shallow, but it deepened even as Sora gazed into it. A tendril of darkness reached up, quivered, and then fell back in. There was a tormented animal cry that echoed off the walls. The walls were lined with chains, cuffs, crosses with manacles, and shackles. There was a long stone altar with leather bonds positioned in front of the pit for sacrifices. A small cannel had been dug so that the blood would run into the pit. Drawn on the altar was a gleaming yellow sigil. On either side of the sigil were wicked-looking sacrificial knives. 

Vanitas knelt before the altar, lifted the knives, and handed one to Deirdre and the other to Rick. 

Deirdre quickly put the knife to Kairi’s throat, smiling as she gazed into the deep pit. A few more snaky tendrils of black reached up, but quickly dropped back into the deep blazing glow. She began humming, eyes sliding closed. 

Kairi’s eyes rolled wildly. Could she risk trying to escape her mother before that knife drove into her throat? She glanced at Sora and he subtly shook his head. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of pale face and he searched the cavern for something—anything!—he could use to his advantage.

Rick pushed his knife into Sora’s back and asked, “Should I cut him?”

Vanitas put his hands on the stone altar and sighed at the heat seeping off of it. “Wait just a moment,” he breathed. “Let me convene with the Dark Lord.”

The silence and heat were becoming unbearable. Sora’s heart was racing at a million miles per hour and Kairi was panting for breath. Vanitas was still serenely standing at the altar, face turned down towards the pit. Deirdre was humming and Rick was tracing restless patterns on Sora’s back with his knife. 

Kairi’s voice shattered the terrible silence. “Why are you doing this?!” she screamed. “Mom, Dad, how could you do this?!”

Vanitas cracked open one gold eye and surveyed the Blackhearts. “You may as well tell her. What will it matter after the Gates are opened?”

Rick nodded, but Deirdre began. 

“You could say it was the Blackhearts who introduced these islands to the true Lord,” Deirdre said in a soft melodious story-telling voice that Kairi had so loved as a child.

“I told them that, honey,” Rick said.

“Did you?”

“I think so.”

She laughed and lifted her face to admire the deep cavern. “All of Destiny Islands used to pray to God on this spot, back when it belonged to the Mercies,” she said. “And do you know how their God answered their prayers? With floods, devastation, diseases, and plagues! Children died, fish left, storms came. He abandoned these people so they abandoned their God.”

“It was my family that introduced them to the True Lord,” Rick continued in the same blissful fairy-tale voice. “A powerful lord who answers His people’s prayers! It was during The Disease. Everyone was dying—young and old, pure and black, worshipers and atheists alike. Their God was wiping this place from the face of the planet.

“My family came to here to help them, following the call of our Lord because He could use this place. More darkness and hatred, fear and suffering, existed in this place than anywhere else in the world, then. He wanted that power, that concentrated power.” 

“Do you remember your dogs, Kairi?” Deirdre murmured. “Do you remember how you used to pray that they would stop swimming out into the ocean? Well, you prayed to the wrong God, sweetheart. That God is a monster who abandons and scorns His people. That… that was your God.”

“That’s not God!” Sora shouted. 

Rick pressed the knife into his back, quieting him. “No? Do you know how our God answers our prayers?”

“With demons and monsters—!”

Rick cut into Sora. “He gives us power! He answers our every whim. He was the one who saved these people from the Disease.”

Vanitas caressed the altar. “Is that where all this darkness comes from? From the reversal of the faithful to the faithless.” He inhaled deeply, blissful smile on his face. “That must be why it’s so sweet.”

Rick smiled. “Yes. The Blackhearts took over the islands and brought the true Lord to these poor miserable wretches, but there has been trouble.”

“Trouble?” Deirdre repeated, but it wasn’t so much a question as leading on the story.

“Yes,” Rick nodded. “Sora’s parents for one. They were some of God’s angels—people of Light, righteous people. Thankfully, they threw themselves into the sea.”

Kairi sucked in a breath. “Sora… your parents?”

He turned his face away, still feeling the scrape of the wooden cross on his back. “Yes,” he whispered. 

Rick and Deirdre laughed. “And now, everyone will know the True Lord!”

Vanitas gestured for Rick to drag Sora to the altar. “Don’t try anything,” the monster wearing his face said. “Your girl will get it.”

To prove his point, Deirdre pushed the tip of her knife into Kairi’s white throat. 

“Stop it!” Sora shouted. A second voice joined his, overlapping with power that reverberated off the cavernous walls.

“What was that?” Rick asked, digging his fingers into Sora’s bicep. 

Vanitas only grinned. “Sora is one of God’s own angels, but don’t worry. He’s nothing compared to us, to me.”

Rick grinned. “I know. Nothing can hope to challenge the Dark Lord.”

Kairi made a sound that was like a cry. “Sora,” she whispered.

Wordlessly, Rick dragged Sora to the altar because the boy that had never been like a son to him was half-resisting. Vanitas grabbed Sora’s arm and stretched it out over the stone altar. Then, he took the knife from Rick’s hand and poised it over the smooth white flesh.

“You’re not going to slit his throat?”

Vanitas smiled. “Waste not, want not. Besides, I wouldn’t want to deny my Lord the pleasure of murdering an angel of Light.”

Rick smiled. “Very true,” he said.

Then, Vanitas plunged the tip of the knife into Sora’s arm and dug a long path from elbow to wrist. Hot crimson blood bubbled out, splattered onto the stone, gathered in the drain, and ran down, down, down. When it reached the Pit, there was a flare of flaming light that reached up to the ceiling. The heat was unbearable, sucking the air from Sora’s lungs and burning his eyes. For a moment, there was silence and he thought maybe it hadn’t worked.

Then, with the most horrible screeching screaming sound, the earth split open from the mouth of the pit. Blackness, nightmares creatures, and flames raced out, spilling across the floor like water. Vanitas was chanting, arms raised above his head. He was opening the Gates!

“No!” Sora shouted. 

He wrest himself free of Rick and dove for the monster wearing his face. He grabbed the knife, wincing at the heat of Vanitas’s body, and tried to yank it free. As before, Vanitas was practically human against him, unable to use any dark powers on a righteous man. Sora managed to tear the knife away from the demon’s hands and stabbed blindly. The first strike bit into the dissolving ground. The second caught Vanitas in the chest. The third was a half-blind shot that went up under the monster’s chin and jaw. Gasping and clawing, as the other creature had, Vanitas’s body dissolved into darkness with one final long scream.

Kairi was screaming, but Sora didn’t know why. 

Then, he felt claws digging into his back. In one smooth movement, he had been torn from the ground and hurled like he weighed no more than a paper airplane. He slammed into one of the cross, shook it loose from its moorings on the wall, and the thing crashed down on top of him. There was a terrible cracking sound from somewhere in his body and Sora cried out in anguish. The knife was inches from where he had fallen, tantalizingly out of reach. Even so, Sora reached desperately for it because Kairi was still screaming. 

Feet appeared in front of Sora’s face and he quickly looked up. 

The most beautiful sight stared down at him, eyes deep and dark like black mirrors and a soft smile. It was a man in his mid-thirties and so beautiful that it was blinding. Then, before Sora’s eyes, his face twisted into something of impossible evil and a shining blade arched down out of nowhere, slashing deep into his body.

Sora let out a scream of agony, but couldn’t escape because of the cross pinning him down.

…

Outside, through the all-encompassing darkness of the storm, a few white clouds pushed through. Some faint rays of sunlight streamed down on the dark ocean, but the light was quickly snuffed out. From somewhere, the horrible sound—earth-rending and so painful that it tore the eardrums to pieces—split the sky. It was the sound of a horn, but a horn like no other.

X X X

And those of you who know which horn I’m talking about are getting a big hint for the future of the story.

Explaining Satan: Lucifer was God’s favorite angel (an archangel even) so I wanted to portray him as beautiful, but also nightmarish because he is a monster. So, he’ll be changing appearances depending on the situation. Try to keep up.

Questions, comments, concerns?


	17. Archangels, Monsters, & Mortals

I’m hoping to wrap this up by twenty chapters. 

I also wanted to ask Krystal Lily Potter if this is coming out ANYTHING like she planned, but I keep forgetting. Well, is it?

For those of you non-bible readers, notice the couple numbers [(1), (2), etc] throughout this chapter. I’ll be referencing a few things and if you don’t get them, you might be confused, so check in at the bottom if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Even more God in this chapter. Once again, everyone get over it.

X X X

Riku looked desperately out the window at the strip of light that had come and vanished so quickly. Suddenly, something crashed in through his window and that awful sound that had been outside the hospital for several minutes shattered through is room. Riku felt as if his heart was going to explode and he gasped for breath. Beside his bed, a hulking form slowly straightened. Were those wings?

“W-who are you?”

…

Lucifer (1) turned in all his robed glory. He appeared to be made of glass, caught somewhere between a shift from darkness to light or vice versa, like a beautiful chiaroscuro painting. His eyes were a deep beautiful golden, like Vanitas’s were, and gleamed with that lantern-light. He turned slowly, surveying the cavern, the bloodied altar, the bleeding young man crushed beneath the cross, and the three other people in the cavern. He recognized his subjects—the Blackhearts. Well, they were descendants of the original line anyway. Their ancestors had murdered the Mercy family, snuffed out the light of God, and given him his first real foothold in this world, on these Islands. 

“Who is your master?” he said to Deirdre and Rick. “Bow to me!”

Like marionettes on strings, they did. 

Deirdre pushed Kairi’s face into the hot earth and she heaved for breath, smothered by heat and fear. “Sora,” Kairi gasped. She was staring past Lucifer, staring at Sora.

Puzzled, Lucifer glanced between them, wondering what their bond was. “Give her to me,” he said to Deirdre. 

Deirdre shoved Kairi so that she went sprawling at his feet. Desperately, she rolled onto her feet, staggering with her hands still tied behind her back. She wanted to dart to Sora, to press her hands to his bleeding back and heave that cross off of him, but Lucifer grabbed her as she darted past. His body was hot, just like Vanitas’s had been, but as soft as satin. She wanted to melt into him, but only those demonic golden eyes made her halt.

“Please, let me go,” she forced out. His eyes held her captive, pinned like a frog for dissection. 

Lucifer grinned and gently caressed her face in his soft warm hands. He gripped her chin and turned her face towards him. She felt his hot breath on her lips, soft and moist, like he was leaning in to kiss her even though she was almost certain that he wouldn’t. 

“Let me go…” It was half-hearted, barely even a whisper. She couldn’t think, could barely breathe. He was so close to her… so close!

Lucifer stroked her hair. “Blood-colored,” he murmured and inhaled the scent of her skin. “I like that. Become mine, pretty Kairi.” She choked as his soft hot lips touched her throat, sharp teeth nipping lightly. His tongue snaked out and tasted her. “You can rule this world on a throne beside me. Would you like that?” 

Kairi tore her eyes from his beautiful face, glancing at Sora’s crumpled form. He was still struggling, digging his nails into the dirt and trying to heave himself out from beneath the fallen cross, but not having much luck. The cross was too heavy and he was too hurt. “Sora,” she whispered desperately.

Lucifer shifted his eyes to her trapped friend and his mouth filled with crooked broken-glass teeth. “Ah, I see. You love him.” There was something awful and hurtful in is voice, something that promised unbelievable suffering just for that one thing—just because she loved him.

Kairi made a strangled sound deep in her chest. “What are you going to do?” she whispered, but she never got her answer.

Suddenly, the earth beneath their feet trembled and quaked. The terrible sound of the horn blowing crashed through the earth—louder and more powerful than a dying heartbeat. Lucifer looked up at the ceiling and quietly cursed. “Gabriel,” was all he said. Again, the sound of the horn shattered the silence. (2) From the depths of the pit, nightmare-creatures surged out. “Go, stop him,” Lucifer said to the assembled creatures. “I’m sure he’s not alone.”

…

Xion hurled herself at the door again, bounced off like a beebee, and wound up strewn across the hardwood floor. Roxas grabbed her by her shoulders and tried to help her up, but she refused. She sat down on the floor, groping around in the pitch dark. Ventus was standing somewhere in the darkness, invisible to both of them, but they could hear him breathing when Xion was quiet and not throwing herself at the locked door. 

“Xion, let it go. It’s not use. You can’t break the door down. You’re only hurting yourself,” Roxas said and carefully held her shoulders as if he would hurt her. 

“Let me go!” She snapped to her feet, tripped in the darkness, and smashed headlong into Ventus. 

Ventus wrapped both arms around her and held her irrevocably against his body. “Stop it,” he said firmly.

For a long moment, she struggled wildly against him, but finally gave up and sagged against him like folded paper. She wanted to cry. It felt so good to be held. Roxas could never hold her—it hurt him too much, hurt his many injuries—but Ventus was so strong and solid against her. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, enjoying the softness and heat of his body on her bruised frame. 

Suddenly, the floor underneath their feet trembled and the sound of the horn shattered the night again.

“What is that sound?” Roxas whispered. “I wish it would stop.”

Ventus made a sound in his chest, but didn’t say anything. 

Suddenly, the window exploded inward in a shower of glass and splinters of wood. A blinding bright light surged into the room and something crashed at their feet. Ventus shoved Xion away and lunged for whatever had entered their prison, half-blinded by the sudden light. He would protect his brother and his once-friend to the death now. He wouldn’t let the monsters take him away again! Even though Ventus had flung himself full-force at the invader, he was stopped like a paper plane by one hand on his shoulder. 

“Stop it.” 

Xion heaved herself off the floor. “Namine?” she whispered. It was almost too good to be true.

Sure enough, Namine was standing beside the blinding orb of light in a white dress. She was not the demon she had been before—face twisted and damaged and infected with Hell. Her face was smooth and beautiful and she was wearing a smile that showed perfect white teeth. She brushed some platinum hair behind her ear and grinned at Xion happily.

“What’s going on?” Xion asked.

“Simple…” Namine said.

Beside her, the orb of light took shape—the shape of a man. He was strong and tall and handsome yet he was completely translucent like a ghost. In one hand, he carried a great sword and was wearing strong silver armor. Slowly, he smiled and said plainly, “I am Michael.” (3)

“The Calvary has arrived,” Namine finished.

…

Lucifer drew Kairi close against his side, holding her tightly as he advanced towards Sora. In front of her injured friend, he looked down and murmured, “So, a righteous man? Too bad Michael won’t come to you. He can’t get down here and I’m sure if the two of you joined up, I wouldn’t have a chance.”

“What do you mean?” Kairi whispered.

Lucifer touched her face. “Don’t worry. You’ll find out soon enough.”

The horn shattered the silence. 

“See? One is here. I’m sure the other is lingering nearby, searching for a way to interfere.” 

…

“There’s just one small problem,” Namine continued. “Michael needs a body.”

“A body?” Roxas repeated. His blue eyes shone in the angelic light wafting off of Michael. 

“Yes,” Namine continued. “God has sent assistance, but he does not believe this place should be saved. He will only give his help through Michael if a body can be found to house him.” She paused, touching her abdomen as if she felt the wounds of her death there. “As he is now, without a body, Michael would be destroyed if he tried to interfere. He cannot walk through Hell without God’s hand. He needs a human’s body to block the demons.” She was looking straight at Ventus, purposefully, but the uninjured twin shied away from her sharp blue gaze.

“I can’t,” he whispered, shivering. “I don’t want to.”

“Ventus, he’s an angel,” Namine said softly. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Roxas reached out to his twin, but Ventus pulled sharply away, shuddering like a child. “He won’t hurt you. He won’t make you hurt anyone else,” Roxas whispered, but did not reach out for his brother again. “You won’t hurt anyone, Ven.”

“I can’t!” Ventus shouted, hugging himself tightly and shying away. He looked as if he wanted to collapse in on himself, but was forcing himself to remain. “You can’t understand what that was like! It was so hard for me to get away! I don’t know if I could do it again! If I become possessed again, that could be the end for me!”

“Ven—” Roxas began but was cut off.

“You don’t understand what it was like to be under their control like that! To be out of control! I watched every single thing I was forced to do. I felt and saw everything they made me do! I saw my own hands torturing my twin, skinning and beating and hurting him! I watched myself killing people, slaughtering children as sacrifices! I felt myself tearing open some poor girl, raping her! I can’t go under some else’s control again. I just can’t!”

Xion grabbed his shoulders and shook his harshly, without a care or concern to his fear. “Ventus, stop it! This is an angel, we’re talking about! We don’t have time for this! Kairi and Sora are down there! We need to help them!”

“Then you let him go into you, Xion!” Ventus snarled in her face.

She recoiled sharply, but snapped back. “I will.” She turned to face Michael and asked politely, suddenly nervous, “Can you use me?”

The angel smiled softly, reached out, and slipped smoothly into her like a spirit. Choking, Xion collapsed to her knees, clutching at her chest. Namine put her arms around her old friend, absorbing everything else that tried to escape. Ventus cried out as Michael joined with Xion as if he could feel her being overpowered, but Roxas didn’t make a sound. He knew this had to be done and he knew Xion could do it. For a moment, Xion was trapped in the blinding light of Michael and Namine, but then all the light faded and they were trapped in the darkness again. Slowly, Xion stood up. She looked impossibly strong, like a gladiator-goddess that would never be beaten. She heaved in a deep breath and said, “Let’s go.” Then, she grabbed the door by its knob and yanked it viciously off its hinges with a clatter.

…

Lucifer knelt, still holding Kairi tightly to his side, and grabbed Sora around the throat with his free hand. Smoothly and effortlessly, he pulled Sora out from beneath the fallen cross. Blood bubbled out of Sora’s mouth and he let out a cry of anguish. He clutched desperately at Lucifer’s hand with both of his, trying to get some air in through is crushed windpipe. He looked so small and frail against this monster, like a porcelain doll left behind from an earlier century to rot.

“Sora!” Kairi gasped and struggled against Lucifer’s hold, but she couldn’t get away. He was just too strong. They needed help!

Behind them, her parents were silent, watching coolly and with awe. They were enjoying watching Lucifer torment and strangle Sora, digging his hands into Kairi, and ruling them like pawns. Kairi shook herself harshly, digging her elbow into Lucifer as she tried again to escape his hold. No, they weren’t her parents anymore and she had to stop thinking of them like that.

“Sora!” she whispered, but Lucifer stopped strangling him. 

Sora sucked in a desperate breath and pushed at Lucifer’s hands.

With a puzzled expression on his face, he set Sora on his feet, continued holding him for a moment, and then released him. Gasping for breath and in pain, Sora fell over sideways. Some blood oozed from his back and Kairi realized that the wounds Lucifer had given him were surprisingly shallow. Why? How was that possible? She had seen Lucifer stabbing down at his fallen-pinned-form so powerfully and cruelly and with murderous intent. There was no way… there should be so much more damage to his back. Sora should be dying! He made a small inhuman sound, a small growl that she barely caught, but it might have just been a sound of pain.

“Sora…?” she whispered.

“What are you?” Lucifer asked.

Behind Sora’s slumped broken body, the fallen cross slowly levitated until it was towering above him like a dangerous spike. It hung there, suspended, for a long moment and then crashed to the ground inches from his back. It remained upright, buried partially in the soft hot earth, as if waiting for something. Sora’s face was shadowed by his chocolate hair, but he slowly raised his head. His beautiful blue eyes were an impossible dangerous gold.

X X X

(1) Lucifer was God’s favorite, most beautiful, and most brilliant archangel. He was the “Keeper of the Light” and “The Morning Star” until his great malice, pride, and egotism caused him to be thrown down from Heaven. 

(Trivia: Lucifer and Satan are actually two separate fallen angels. Lucifer fell first so I’ll be using him at the ultimate evil here because I didn’t know that until I researched him a little. Did anyone else know that?)

(2) "For storms will rage and oceans roar, when Gabriel stands on sea and shore, and as he blows his wondrous horn, old worlds die and new be born." In short and plain English, Gabriel is the archangel that shall blow the trumpet blast that initiates the end of time and the general initiation at the Last Judgment.

(3) Archangel Michael is the leader of God’s forces against evil. He’s kind of the defender of humanity which is very unfair because every time God loses faith in humanity (which he has several times throughout the course of the Bible) Michael always persuades him not to murder us all yet Jesus gets all the credit. 

Questions, comments, concerns? 

Anyone confused?


	18. Into the Heart of Hell

Grah! I keep typing Syaoran instead of Sora because I’m rereading Tsubasa. It just ended! I’m so incredibly sad! It was my absolute favorite series! (So, if you see a Syaoran, change it to Sora and don’t get too confused, but I think I caught them all! At least, I hope I did!)

Lots of stuff happening rather fast in this chapter. Take a deep breath before you start to read.

X X X

Beside Riku’s hospital bed, a great angel slowly straightened. He had a strong stony face and flint black eyes that sliced through Riku, baring his every sin and dark thought. Even so frightening, he was more beautiful than some of the models Riku was used to seeing in the city with Kairi. Gaping like a fish out of water, he watched the angel lift an ornate and beautifully curved horn to his lips and blow. That awful rending sound split the world into halves. Outside, the dark sky shattered into a mess of dark and light like a shattered window in a deserted church. 

Something beneath Riku’s bed let out a shriek and he heard it scurrying away through the darkness. Somewhere in the hospital, there was an awful animal-beast scream of something being torn apart, of something dying. Were these nightmare creatures eating the vulnerable patients? Killing them in their beds? 

“W-who are you?” Riku stuttered out.

The angel looked down on him with those stone eyes as if debating whether or not he should waste his breath on answering. Finally, he said, “Gabriel.” 

“Are you here to save us?”

Before Gabriel could answer, a beam of white-gold light streamed down from the dark-light-spattered sky. It crashed into the ocean and sent up a great wave—a tsunami. Gabriel turned, took in the sight, made a sound deep in his chest, lifted his horn to his lips, and blew again.

Riku clapped his hands over his ears, whimpering. The sound of that horn was horrible, painful, tearing him apart at the seams and picking him apart. The very foundation of the hospital trembled. It was as if the world was falling apart. Then, the sound abruptly stopped. Riku looked up to see Gabriel tying the horn neatly to his belt.

“No,” the archangel said.

“No?” Riku whispered.

“No. I am not here to save you. Not you specifically,” he said and was quiet for a long moment. Then, he explained, “He is sick of this place, sick of all the death. He plans to sink it… just like Atlantis. Michael will try to halt Hell at its source. I am here to purify and rebuild the broken world.”

“Rebuild?” Riku repeated in a small voice. “Purify?” 

“Yes.”

“Purify how?”

Gabriel stared hard at him and then said flatly, “By murdering the filth of this land.”

Riku’s heart stopped beating in his chest, as dead as a cold stone. 

…

Lucifer dropped Kairi sharply when Sora dove for him like a snarling beast. The wind was knocked out of her lungs at the hard connection. Hacking into the dirt, she rolled over onto her back and tried to lever herself up onto her feet with her hands still tied behind her back. After a long moment of struggling, she staggered to her feet.

Sora and Lucifer were at the edge of the pit, snarling and grappling. They looked so strange, like beautiful gods locked in eternal combat, but they were still so different, like the opposing sides of a coin. The only thing similar between them was their golden lantern-like eyes. Claws sprouted from Sora’s fingertips, black and gnarled and twisted, and they carved deeply into Lucifer’s golden flesh. Slowly, the black coloring bled through Sora’s entire hand, made it to his wrists, suddenly stopped, and retreated. Sora’s eyes flashed blue again and he sucked in a deep breath. For a moment, his face was confused and he didn’t seem to know where he was or what he was doing. In that moment, Lucifer put his foot in Sora’s gut and heaved him off. Sora crashed across the ground, coming to rest at the base of the cross that had formerly crushed him.

“What is this?” Lucifer asked with a grin. “My, my, my, what a surprise.”

Sora pressed both hands to his stomach where Lucifer had kicked him. His eyes were wide and confused, desperate for an explanation, and he gazed up into the monster’s face as he approached.

“I see what we have here,” Lucifer said and came to a stop in front of Sora. “You saw me touching your girl, threatening her, and the darkness came into your heart. You are not so incorruptible.” He grinned, showing broken shards of teeth. “You’re just like Michael.”

“Michael?” Sora whispered. 

“Yes, Michael,” Lucifer said with a smirk. “And that means…” Suddenly, he whirled around, grabbed Kairi by her waist, and pressed her against his body.

“No! Don’t!” Sora shouted and scrambled to his feet. 

Lucifer gripped Kairi’s face in one hand, putting his fingers to her mouth tenderly. He leaned in close as if to kiss her and she felt his hot breath on her lips. All of the sudden, his body felt like it was burning her, burning through her clothes and skin. 

Sora snarled, eyes bleeding gold, but he struggled a moment, pushing the darkness away. 

Kairi sobbed as the sky-blue color returned. “S-Sora?” 

“Don’t hurt her!”

“And you thought he didn’t love you, pretty Kairi. You thought you had moved on with that other bastard of yours that you found in the city. Even if your Sora had been hurt, do you think he would have let you go into the very heart of Hell alone like that rat?”

Kairi sobbed.

Sora’s pale face turned even paler, and then heated with a blush. This was no time for blushing, he snapped at himself, but to no avail. Lucifer was right. Sora still loved Kairi. He still wanted her, still would sacrifice for her, still would everything for her. He still loved her.

Lucifer grinned, glancing between them. “Well—” he stepped backwards towards the pit, dragging Kairi along with him. “Shall we test you, Sora?”

“No!”

But it was too late. Lucifer had already plunged into the pit, taking Kairi with him. Sora raced after them. He felt Rick catching at the back of his shirt, trying to drag him back, but the fabric tore in Sora’s haste to escape. Then, smoothly, Sora dove into the darkness and fire of Hell. 

Behind him, the hidden door exploded open. 

…

Xion, Roxas, and Ventus crashed down the stairs and exploded into the Pit only seconds too late. Sora, Kairi, and Lucifer were already gone. Deirdre and Rick remained, armed with ceremonial knives. They were standing at the edge, looking down into it as if considering following. 

“Where’s Kairi?” Xion shouted. “Where’s Sora?”

Deirdre smiled sickly. “They went into Hell,” she said softly.

Roxas gasped. “You killed them?!”

She grinned.

Suddenly, Xion felt out of control. Her arms moved on their own. Her entire body moved on its own and she couldn’t do anything about it. She heard Ventus make a terrible distressed sound deep in his chest, but she couldn’t turn to face him. She watched, helplessly, as her body closed the space between herself and the Blackhearts. 

Rick lifted his knife and plunged it down in a shining arch at her. 

She tried to scream, but it was caught in her throat. The knife bit into her shoulder, slithering between her collarbone and scapulae. Soundlessly, like a marionette on a string, she grabbed Rick’s hand and held him in a firm grip. Even so, he could not pull away from her. His face went pale and he let out a cry. She felt the bones in his hands shatter beneath her fingers like shards of glass. Something pricked into her palm. 

Bones? She wanted to scream, but the sound was trapped deep inside. 

Still holding Rick with one hand, she grasped the knife embedded in her body with the other and pulled it out. She felt no pain, not a scrap or thread of it. Wordlessly, she raised the knife above her head and prepared to murder Kairi’s father.

 _I don’t want to do this,_ she thought desperately and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Her body continued to move on its own.

With a terrible banshee cry, Deirdre threw herself at Xion’s back. The knife bit into her body again and again, but she couldn’t feel anything. Without so much as looking back at the women, Xion stabbed Rick over and over until his face was more like cooked meat. Then, she let him drop.

Deirdre was still screaming and tearing into her, destroying Xion’s clothes because she noticed that each wound stitched itself closed as fast as it was created. Michael’s doing, she wondered absently. Using the knife that was still covered with Rick’s blood. Xion did that same to Deirdre. She caught Kairi’s mother by the wrist and cut her throat. 

Hot blood spattered on Xion’s face and allowed her throat to work again. “Stop it!” she screamed. “I don’t want this!”

“Xion!” It was Ventus. He tore away from Roxas who had been holding him back and quickly closed the space between them, locking Xion in his embrace.

For a moment, she feared that she would stab him—murder him as well. Yes, there were times when she wanted to kill him herself, but not right now… not now… She wanted to hug him, but she couldn’t lift her arms. They felt like lead, heavy and ice-cold. She felt tears in her throat, but her voice came out clear and strong. 

“We need to go to the hospital,” she said firmly and pulled away from Ventus. She walked passed Roxas, still holding the knife in her white-knuckled hand. 

Roxas crossed the cavern o his twin, knelt to check Deirdre and Rick’s pulses, didn’t find any, and straightened. “She’s alright,” he said to his brother.

Ventus shook his head. “She’s lost control. She doesn’t like it. I know that look…”

“Xion chose to do this.”

“Because I wouldn’t…”

“Ven—”

“If anything bad happens, it’ll be my fault.” With that, Ventus followed swiftly after Xion and left Roxas behind again.

… 

Roxas started to follow his twin ad friend regardless, but pain from his many injuries speared through him, shattering his body. He collapsed to his knees, hugging his damaged body. Gasping for breath, he watched as they both left him behind. Roxas sucked in some air, glanced back at the glowing Pit and decided to remain behind in this chamber. They still needed to find Sora and Kairi anyway and he would only slow the others down. So, Roxas knelt at the side of the pit beside Rick and Deirdre’s bodies and waited. 

He waited for his friends to come back up… if they could, that is.

X X X

Kind of a short, but I wanted the whole Sora/Lucifer/Hell climax all in one chapter. 

Then, the hospital stuff. 

Then, the secret stuff. 

Then, the closing chapters. 

That’s what? Four chapters? Maybe…? 

We all know how things always get away from me!

Questions, comments, concerns? 

REVIEW, you awful people!


	19. The Blackheart Twins' Secondary Gates

Because a lot of people seemed to have missed it: Vanitas is dead. Sora killed him almost as soon as the Gates of Hell opened.

X X X

Sora slammed into the cold concrete floor with the force of a runaway train. Wind knocked out of him, he lay stunned for a moment, breathing hard. Then, he heard a scream—Kairi’s voice—screaming his name! He bolted to his feet, practically tripped over himself in his haste, but finally got steady on his feet. 

“Kairi!” he shouted and his voice bounced off the walls, drawing his attention to his location. 

Was he… in the basement on the old Blackheart house… still? 

“Kairi?”

He heard her scream for him again.

“Kairi!” 

Sora darted up the concrete passage that led down into the basement, yanked the familiar lever, and watched impatiently as the bookcase swung aside. Then, something iron-hard and ice-cold hit him in the face with a clang. He let out a cry of pain and surprise, crashed backwards, caught himself on the wall, and lurched back to his feet. 

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!”

Sora looked up to find himself face-to-face with a young woman. She had deep dark eyes, dark shoulder-length hair, and a moon-pale pretty face. In one hand, she was holding a cast-iron skillet and had a Bible tucked under her arm. Sora put one hand to his face and carefully felt his brutalized nose. 

“What are you doing?” he demanded of the young woman because she didn’t appear to be a demon. What demon hit people with a frying pan?

Glaring, she put one hand on her hips and shoved her frying pan against his chest indignantly. “Well, what are you doing coming charging out of the Gates that I sealed?”

“Gates? That’s a bookshelf!” He turned to point it out to her, but instead of a dusty bookshelf there were towering wrought-iron gates twisted intricately with thorny vines and black roses. “Are these… the Gates of Hell?”

“No. These are secondary gates. I created them,” the young woman said. “If you came in through them that means the outer gates are open, aren’t they?”

Sora nodded. “Vanitas opened them.”

“Vanitas?” The girl repeated and her dark eyes widened.

“Yes, but I killed him. He’s dead now.”

“You killed him?!” she shouted. “What?! How?!”

Sora rolled his shoulders. “Apparently, I’m a person of Light. A righteous man,” he told her. “Has anyone else come through here?”

“Lucifer,” she said. “He had a girl with him.”

“And you didn’t club him in the face?!”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve been here for almost two hundred years now and I’ve learned that I cannot best the Devil. Lucifer knocks me aside like a bag of wind. He’s not even stopped by my gates. Just comes and goes as he pleases,” she said and swung her frying pan absently.

“Two hundred years?” Sora repeated.

“Yes. I am Mio Blackheart,” she said.

“Mio Blackheart?!”

She nodded. “My sister and I devised this even through the afterlife. She sealed Vanitas and I helped her created a way to block the powers of Hell with the secondary Gates. Now, I guard the Gate and she watches the house.”

“Mayu is dead.”

“I know.”

“You’re dead.”

“I know.”

“What the Hell is going on?” Sora demanded, getting worked up.

“I’ll hit you again,” she said dryly. 

“I don’t have time for this. I have to save Kairi!”

She pushed the skillet against his chest, holding him back. “Calm down. You’ll just die if you don’t know what’s going on here. I can help you,” she explained.

“Then hurry up and help me!”

“Since you made it this far, you must know about Faceless Vanitas and how he killed me. He would’ve taken one life from our family until the end of time if Mayu hadn’t sealed him up with her sigils—one in the house, one in a secret place we had discovered together.”

“A secret place?” Sora thought suddenly of the sigil Kairi had found in their secret place shortly before she left for the city, before all this happened.

“Yes, a cave near the beach,” Mio said. “You know it. You’re Kairi was the one who touched and broke the sigil there.”

Sora lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Mio shrugged. “We knew it would break eventually. That’s why we created the secondary Gates.”

“Then, all the powers of Hell haven’t really been unleashed.”

“Not hardly! Only a little bit is seeping out. If all the power had been released, you would all be dead. Even you, Mr. Righteous Man,” she said sourly. “Only they small monsters that can fit through the holes in the Gate are escaping to Earth.” She glanced over his shoulder at the iron gates. “I guess that’s why Lucifer brought you here…”

“Why?”

“He wants to break through the secondary gates and release all his power.”

“How?”

“Simple. He must taint the righteous and then he may kill me. If I am destroyed, so are my gates.”

“What about Mayu?”

“Mayu will be no match for him. She’s only watching over, after all.”

“Shit!” Sora swore. 

“What?” Mio asked absently. “You’re righteous. That is not something easily taken away.”

“It’s already started. He’s started…”

Mio sucked in some air. “What?” she whispered.

“Back in the other house, there was something wrong with me. I hardly remember, but he said I wasn’t incorruptible. He said that I was like Michael.”

“No,” she whispered. “How is that possible?”

“Because of Kairi…”

She dropped her skillet with a clang, grabbed his shoulders, and shoved him against the gates. “You must let her go!”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?! Do you understand what will happen if the Gates are thrown open?!”

“I can’t let her go! I love her!”

Mio pulled away as if struck. “No… this cannot be… Please, you have to let her go. If there is that weakness in you, everything will be destroyed.”

“But—”

“The world and everyone in it will die. God will destroy his creation completely and not even Michael will be able to stop Him.”

Sora lowered his eyes. “But I love her.”

“Then why is your love darkness?! Love should be strength, not weakness!”

“Because… she belongs to someone else.”

“Then what right do you have to love her?!”

“She was mine first!” Sora shouted at Mio. For a moment, his eyes blazed gold and there was a sharp pain in his hands. When he looked down, there was inky darkness spreading through is flesh. Stunned, he stared at them even as claws began to twist his fingernails.

Mio struck his hands with the skillet and the blackness retreated.

“Why does that happen?” he whispered.

“Iron,” Mio said. “Why do you think prisons have iron bars? To not only trap the flesh, but contain the evil within it. Iron is naturally resistant to evil.”

Sora met her eyes. “I’m going to stop Lucifer and I’m going to save Kairi. Give it to me.”

“No! I’ll have nothing to guard the secondary gates with!” She clutched it to her chest.

“I’ll come back!”

Mio hugged it desperately to her chest, watching his blue eyes cautiously. Finally, she passed it to him. “If you fail, there’s nothing I can do.”

“I understand,” Sora said. He looked up at the ceiling. “Why is this the Blackheart house?”

“Because we used it as a hub for the Gates. If you step outside, there’s only Hell beyond. In here though, it’s just like the house. In the basement—the Pit that the Blackhearts created—are the actual Gates of Hell that lead back to the living world. The secondary gates created by me and my sister are where the hidden-mechanism secret-bookcase-passage used to be. Only I can open or close them.”

Sora nodded at her explanation. “Where did Lucifer take Kairi?”

Mio lifted her face. “To the attic.”

“The attic?” he repeated.

Mio nodded. “It’s where Vanitas killed me so the power of Hell is strongest there. You must be careful.”

“I know,” he said and nodded. He took the skillet from her and turned away, but her voice stopped him.

“Sora?”

“Yeah?”

“Your parents… they really loved you.”

Sora turned to face her, but Mio Blackheart was already gone like the ghost she was. He wrapped both hands around the iron skillet, took a deep breath, and began climbing the stairs to the attic where this had all began on one Hell-hot summer night. Behind him, the secondary gates creaked and groaned and another monster slipped out through the bars.

…

Namine Blackheart was standing beside Mayu, watching over the decaying house and the dark islands as Mayu did. It felt like forever since she had actually been able to help anyone, to influence what she saw. It was torment to be restricted only to watching. She wished so badly to be Mio, fighting at the secondary gates they had created, stopping monsters. But Namine had no business in Hell and therefore could not help the younger twin. 

“Thanks for what you did, Mayu,” Namine said.

Mayu smiled at her, a mirror-image of Mio, except her face was softer and kinder. She wasn’t a fighter like Mio was. “I didn’t do much, Namine,” she said. 

“You called for God, didn’t you?”

“No.” Mayu shook her head. “I didn’t. Michael wanted to interfere and God allowed him.”

“Well, you at least pulled me back from Hell,” she continued.

“No.” Mayu shook her head. “I didn’t. Mio tightened her reins on the Gates and prevented anything from slipping through to you.” She sighed. “I’ve always been the useless twin.”

“No,” Namine said. “You sealed Vanitas, right?”

“I did, but it did not hold.”

“Nothing lasts forever,” Namine said.

“You’re right,” Mayu murmured. “Not even this will last forever…”

“What do you mean?”

Mayu’s dark eyes took up the world like a black mirror, sucking up the light.

X X X

Did I say the climax was going to be in one whole chapter? Well, I lied!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	20. Darkness of the Heart

Umm, hmm, nothing to say.

*insert something witty here*

X X X

The attic was dark and hot, like a tight womb. Sora groped blindly in the threshold of the stairs for a light switch, but couldn’t find one. Duh, old house built in the 1800s. Blind, he felt his way up the staircase, guided by the sounds of Kairi’s whimpering and sobbing. The skillet clanged against the steps as she stumbled, but he didn’t even bother trying to be sneaky. He knew Lucifer knew he was coming and the embodiment of evil was waiting patiently in the dark. Finally, Sora made it to the top and came to a stop with the frying pan gripped in his hand baseball-bat style. Lucifer was lounging a wooden rocking chair and the effect should have been lessened, but it wasn’t. Lucifer was still and terrifying and imposing figure. Kairi was still bound neatly at his side. Her eyes were wide and terrified, but she didn’t say anything when she saw him. It was almost as if she was beyond words.

“Let her go,” Sora said firmly and brandished the borrowed weapon.

“You’ve met Mio, I see,” Lucifer began. 

“Let her go!”

Lucifer laughed. “My dear boy, Mio is here of her own free will. In fact, if I could let her go, I would. That girl has been a thorn in my side for nearly two hundred years.”

“Not Mio!” Sora snapped. “Kairi! Let Kairi go!”

Lucifer languished in his chair, stretching out his legs. “Do you intend to fight me, Sora Strife?”

“Yes.”

He looked startled, then grinned widely. “Well, no mortal has ever so blatantly admitted it.”

“I admit it!”

“I see that,” Lucifer said plainly. Then, in a movement so fast that Sora didn’t even see it, he was suddenly inches from Sora’s face. His eyes were deep luminous gold, so bright that they blinded Sora, and his mouth was full of shattered teeth. 

Sora leaped back, shoving the skillet between himself and Lucifer like a shield. “You get back!”

“I thought you wanted to fight me?” Lucifer lunged at Sora again. He caught Sora around the throat and hurled him down the stairs. Like a broken doll, Sora lay groaning in pain at the bottom. The skillet was jammed in his ribs. Were any broken? “Maybe I’ll just have your little sweetheart, here,” Lucifer purred and his footsteps were loud on the hardwood as he crossed the attic to where Kairi was sitting with her hands bound behind her back. 

Kairi whimpered and tried to slither away from him, but her back was against the wall. “Please, don’t,” she whispered.

Instantly, Sora flew up the stairs he had crashed down like a bat out of hell. There was a shrieking cry coming out of his mouth, a demonic animal sound. His sky-blue eyes were gold again and the blackness was sweeping up his arms like bleeding ink on wet parchment. Now, it was past his elbows and his fingers had tapered into long gnarled claws. A few teeth in his mouth were needle-sharp points, but the rest were still square and human. He still had Mio’s frying pan clutched absently in one hand and was swinging it wildly at Lucifer’s face. 

Grinning, Lucifer caught the iron in one hand. With a sizzle, the flesh of his hand blackened and burned. Quickly he released it and leaped backwards from Sora s he swung the pan again. “That’s no possible!” he shouted. “There is darkness in you. You’re not a righteous man anymore!”

“Sora,” Kairi sobbed. “You have to get away. He’ll kill you!” She struggled with her bonds, but couldn’t free herself. 

As if he hadn't heard her, Sora lunged at Lucifer again. This time, Lucifer neatly avoided him and Sora fell over himself like a puppet with its string cut. On the floor, he gasped heavily for breath and dug his claws into the hardwood floor, leaving deep furrows.

“Sora!” Kairi gasped. She crawled like a worm on her belly to his side and tried to roll him over, but she couldn’t without the use of her hands. “Oh God, Sora, please, get up!”

“Kairi…” His voice was low and soft, pained. 

“Sora, please, get up! He’s going to kill you!” she sobbed.

Through the dimness of the attic, Lucifer’s hand locked on the back of Kairi’s neck and he dragged her to her feet. She let out a scream of pain and her legs flailed like paper streamers beneath her, but Lucifer held her above the ground as if she weighed nothing. 

“Let me go!” Kairi screamed. “Please, it hurts!”

Sora grabbed Lucifer’s bare foot, unable to find the strength to rise to his feet. “Let… let her go… please… Let Kairi go.”

“Does fighting the darkness exhaust you?” Lucifer said in a tantalizing voice.

“Sora,” Kairi sobbed. Her throat was scratchy from the pressure on her neck. “Sora, please.”

Sora struggled to rise, but his body was like jelly. He sucked in a breath and managed to get up on his knees like a struck-down slave. The frying pan was a few inches from his hands and he grabbed it eagerly. Lucifer grinned down at him, confident that Sora couldn’t hurt him, but Sora swung the skillet into his shin with surprising force. Lucifer dropped Kairi down on Sora’s back. She let out a cry of alarm and Sora grunted in pain.

“Sora!”

“Tainted love,” Lucifer murmured. “The only way to destroy a righteous man. You must destroy what he loves and then he will grow to hate. Through that hate, the darkness gets in. Tell me, Sora, do you hate me for threatening her? For threatening the love of your life?”

Kairi shivered, laying flushed against Sora’s side and peering fearfully up at Lucifer’s golden face. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

“Or, do you hate Riku for taking her away from you?” Lucifer continued.

“What?” Kairi whispered.

Lucifer grinned. “Or, do you hate her for taking herself away from you? Do you hate her for leaving you to go to the city?”

Beneath Kairi, a shudder ran through Sora’s body. A sick little whine issued from between his clenched teeth and he tried to crawl, but Kairi’s body was weighing him down, crushing him into the hardwood floor. Lucifer put his foot down on the frying pan, relishing the fact that the iron only burned a little. It hurt him as much as it did when Mio tried to strike him—with only the natural properties of iron—rather than the searing power of a righteous man. 

Sora Strife was breaking.

He was becoming tainted, corrupted.

There was darkness in his righteous light-filled heart.

Darkness that was seeping in through his selfless love for the girl who hurt him. 

Lucifer grinned down at them and toed Kairi off of Sora even though she tried to remain close to him. Her eyes were full of fear for Sora, not for herself. Hmm, it seemed the girl was sort of righteous and selfless in her own way, but it didn’t matter anyway. So long as Sora shattered under his hand, Lucifer could still escape the barriers the Blackheart twins had set upon him. The sigils had been broken and the primary gate had already been opened for him. All that was left was the secondary gate that Mio and Mayu had created. Then, he would be free to rule and destroy the world. 

“Well, Sora, why do you have hatred in your heart?” Lucifer teased. 

More black-ink rushed up Sora’s arms, almost up to his shoulders, and his eyes blazed like fire. The spidery lashes looked like they were burning, on fire, smoking. Kairi realized he was crying and the light from his golden demon eyes was caught on his starred damp lashes. 

“Sora,” she whispered. “Please…” She touched his face, but he pulled away.

“I don’t hate,” Sora forced out. “I don’t hate anyone. I don’t know where this darkness is coming from.”

Beneath Lucifer’s foot, the frying pan began to burn him. He yanked back, recoiling from the burn, but he couldn’t stand on his damaged foot. Hissing, he eased himself into his rocking chair and tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. “Really? Your heart says otherwise.”

Sora heaved himself onto his feet, staggering under the weight of the frying pan. His eyes cast deep golden shadows that darted like monsters through the dim attic.

Kairi remained laying on the floor, staring up at them desperately. “Sora, please…” There was fear in her voice.

Sora leveled the skillet at Lucifer’s face and murmured, “It doesn’t matter how I feel. It I don’t stop you, everyone will die. It’s bad enough that Namine is already dead. I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”

“Deirdre and Rick are dead, too,” Lucifer added, hoping to bait the young man, but Sora didn’t rise.

His face looked sad, but he murmured, “It doesn’t matter. They were bad people. I’m sure they’ll be joining you shortly.” Then, to Kairi, he said, “I’m sorry.”

She sobbed, but it wasn’t for the death of her parents. It was for the darkness that was slowly creeping up Sora’s throat. Soon, it would have consumed him entirely. What could she do to help him? Lucifer was tearing him apart! And he was using her to do it! What could she do to stop the devil?!

Lucifer grinned, watching the blackness begin to cover Sora’s face. Only his golden eyes gleamed in the complete darkness that he was becoming. The righteous man, the person of light, was falling apart and it had been so easy. “Well, Sora, what’s letting the darkness in then?”

Sora stopped and swayed like a pendulum caught in a broken clock. “I… I don’t know. I don’t feel… tainted.”

“Believe me, you are. You are complete hatred and darkness. So, admit it, what do you hate?”

“I…” he lowered his golden eyes. “I hate… myself.”

And just like that, the blackness consumed the rest of Sora’s body. 

…

At the secondary gates, Mio looked up at the ceiling above her. Nightmare creatures dropped down into the rafters and lined up in front of her gates, waiting patiently to be released into the world. Mio positioned herself in front of the gates, but she couldn’t stop them unarmed. All she could hope was that Sora would make it.

…

Mayu and Namine, waiting and watching in the old Blackheart mansion, saw the rift appear in the sky. Beyond that strip of whiteness in the dark, figures stood and waited. Behind each of them, a pair of gleaming wings arched above each head. Angels… the dogs of heaven were about to be unleashed on this dark hell-on-earth. 

…

It was like a nuclear bomb going off, sudden and violent. Plumes of whiteness tore off of him like flesh, shrieking away into the corners of the attic like living ghosts. Sora’s hands began to burn and crisp, blackened skin peeling away to reveal red bloody flesh beneath. The iron was burning him, burning the new evil that had blossomed in him. He wasn’t Sora anymore. He was a nightmare monster, a demon, a creature, a fallen righteous man…

From his chair, Lucifer rose. He was favoring one foot, but he had a shining blade in his hand. 

Sora was just standing there like a lamb for slaughter, staring into Lucifer’s golden face.

“No!” Kairi screamed. Then, she threw herself between them. Like wet paper, her bonds snapped and her arms were freed. She flung her arms around Sora’s neck, hugging him tightly. “Sora, please, you’re a wonderful person! You can’t hate!” 

“You’re a stupid girl. He’s already gone,” Lucifer snarled and his cold fingers bit into Kairi’s back. He tried to tear her away from Sora.

“I love you! I still love you!” Kairi pressed her lips to his half-open mouth. She felt his sharp teeth on her lips, cutting into her. “Please, Sora, I love you!”

Tendrils of white shot from between their close bodies like bolts of lightning. Lucifer stumbled back, shocked as the light lashed at him like something alive. 

“Stop! This isn’t possible! He’s tainted!”

Some blue streamed through Sora’s golden eyes and Kairi saw some caramel-tan flesh peeking out around his eyes, pushing back the darkness. “Love should be strength, not weakness,” he whispered to her, echoing Mio’s words. “I love you, Kairi. Stay with me.”

“Yes, always,” she sobbed and hugged him tightly.

Sora bent, picked up the skillet, and pointed it at Lucifer. “You… You will remain here in this damaged dark realm forever. You were cursed to that, don’t you remember? And you will never escape because you cannot taint someone who is righteous or who loves.”

Lucifer grinned. “Oh, stupid Sora, I will always be on earth. There are always people ready and willing to give themselves over for the darkness in exchange for power or riches or even the love you speak so highly of.” To Kairi, he snarled, “Did you know your Riku would have sold his soul to me to possess you the way Sora does?”

Kairi hugged Sora tightly. “You’re a liar!”

Lucifer laughed. “That’s the nature of the Devil, sweetheart. You’re God may lie to you in your words and your hopes and prayers, but evil is a constant. It does not pick and chose. And, most of all, I do not lie. I never lie. Frankly, I do not need to. There is always something dark in someone.” His golden eyes flashed to Sora. “Take your Sora for example, a righteous man yet there was darkness in his love for himself.”

“That’s not—” Kairi protested.

“Even self-hatred is darkness. Yes, your love pulled him back from the brink, but it’s still there.”

For a moment, they stood off, staring at each other. 

Finally, Lucifer waved his hand. “Go, you cannot kill me. Someone will take my place. There must always be evil in this world or else there is no such thing as good, but be careful—” he flashed his golden flaming eyes at them “—I may just follow you out.”

Sora hugged Kairi close to him, but turned his back on Lucifer. Once he had though, he practically flew from the attic. Mio was standing at the secondary gates, holding off a small army of nightmares creatures, but they scattered when Sora approached. Kairi stared, dumbfounded at Mio, having seen black-and-white yellowed photographs of the Blackheart twins and was shocked to find one in Hell.

Sora passed her the borrowed skillet and said, “We need to get out of here.”

“But Lucifer—”

“He’ll try to follow, but we can’t stay here,” Sora said. “Open the Gates and close them behind us, Mio.”

She met his determined eyes and nodded. “Alright.”

Then, she turned to face the beautiful gates and simply touched them with the flat of her palm. Creaking and groaning, the wrought-iron gates eased open and hot white light streamed in. The nightmare creatures surged and Lucifer charged down the stairs of the attic like a beast. His hair was aflame and his eyes were like daggers.

“Go!” Mio shouted and shoved Sora and Kairi through the secondary gates. “These will not stop him! You must get out and close the other gates from the outside! There’s nothing I can do to help you!”

Sora nodded, grabbed up Kairi, and ran down the sloping passage. Behind them, Lucifer’s breath was like molten lava, melting their skin and singing hair. Finally, the basement-pit was in sight. It was glowing with bright white light. 

“I’ll kill you if you go through there!” Lucifer shouted. “I’ll destroy everything you’ve ever loved.” His arms were spread as if to envelope them into him, but Sora paid him no mind. He pushed Kairi into the gaping white hole and then plunged in after her himself. 

The light swallowed them and then they were in the Pit back in the Blackheart basement. 

…

Roxas was kneeling at the side of it between Rick and Deirdre’s bodies, waiting for the return of his friends, praying for them. He looked up when a beam of white shot up from the Pit, formed beautiful gates of gold and light, and spilled Sora and Kairi out. Sora quickly turned and put his shoulder to the gate. Through the crack, twisted black fingers reached out and Lucifer grinned at Sora.

“I’ll have your life yet!” 

Flames shot through the opening, licking at Sora’s face and body. His hair flamed, but he continued pressing on the Gates, refusing to back down. Then, through the crack, just above Lucifer’s face, Vanitas peered out at them. He was still wearing Sora’s face—Kale’s face—and he grinned at Sora.

This was just like Riku’s dream, she realized, with the Gates of Hell opening and monsters and flames reaching out to kill whoever was closing them. In her own dream that same night, Sora had died, been killed by Vanitas-Kale. Oh God, was it all coming true? 

Kairi pressed her hands to her face, trying to stifle her screams. 

But, how could Vanitas be alive? Sora had killed him! But, then again, Vanitas was a demon. He had never been alive to start with. The death must have simple returned him to Hell and now he was reaching out through the half-open gates, somehow having gotten past Mio at the secondary gates. 

Roxas raced to her side, but stopped when he saw the monsters—Lucifer and Vanitas—on the other side of the gates. “What?” he whispered.

Then, Vanitas’s neck stretched impossibly and twisted through the narrow opening like a snake. He quickly and easily found his mark and, without a second thought, ripped Sora’s throat out. The fountain of hot blood covered the gates and all the monsters shrank back, hissing and screaming, burned by the blood of a righteous man. The Gates slammed shut, lingered a moment in the still quiet air, and then vanished completely. The hellish glow at the bottom of the pit was gone too. The silence deafened.

The only thing remaining to show that all this had actually happened was Sora as he slowly bled out on the earthen floor.

Kairi rushed to his side, cradling his head in her lap and pressing on his damaged throat as she had done for Riku. Before her, his handsome face blurred as her eyes filled with tears. “No, Sora,” she whispered and sobbed. “Please, no. This isn’t happening. Don’t go!”

“I’ll call an ambulance!” Roxas shouted and ran away as fast as he could in his injured state.

Sora smiled at her and his mouth was full of blood. “Kai, tell me again,” he croaked.

“Tell you what?” she sobbed. “Oh God, the blood—” It wouldn’t stop. It just kept rushing out, pulsing against her hands like a river.

“Tell me you—” he choked, blood running from his mouth “—that you love me.”

“I love you! I love you. I love you. I love you,” she sobbed. “Please, Sora, please, don’t die! I love you.”

He smiled through all the blood on his face, closed his sky-blue eyes, and was gone.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

I’d better see some serious reviews or else you all won’t like the ending I’ll write. (Believe it or not, I am capable of writing tragic endings to my stories. Look at Not Even Once: Failure Version!)


	21. Michael & Gabriel

I’m so evil. No Sora or Kairi until the next chapter. Mwuahahahaha!

I plan to end this neatly at twenty-five chapters. Okay? (Hopefully… You all know how things tend to get away from me. What was this supposed to end at originally? Twenty chapter?)

X X X

Before the Gates of Hell slammed shut at great cost, the hospital was dark and loud. It echoed Xion’s earlier prediction—‘It’s loud now.’ There were many noises of the nightmare creatures that had slipped through the open Gates—awful chattering and shrieking and demonic screams, disgusting slurping and eating noises as patients were devoured in their beds, sick wet fleshy sounds of death, distant human screams, and animalistic fatal cries. Aside from the nightmare creature’s sounds, there was the occasional shattering of Gabriel blowing his horn. 

The air was hot and sulfurous, wafting in through the open windows with the breath of Hell from the open Pit across the islands. The dark sky was still a solid wall of black storm clouds. There was no rift revealing the monstrous dogs of Heaven preparing to destroy what was left of the world.

Gabriel was working methodically through the rooms in the hospital. With the sword he preferred not carry—weapons were Michael’s trade—he murdered the nightmare creatures and humans without discrimination. He was not merciful Michael, after all, and even now… 

He knew that even Michael was not being merciful. He already knew that his fellow angel had struck down the Blackhearts—Richard and Deirdre—the evil Satanists whose ancestors had introduced the cult powers to Destiny Islands. 

Gabriel pressed his horn to his lips and sounded the end-of-the-world blast again. Behind him, a window cracked and a light came on but it quickly flickered out. Hell was too strong. It was pushing out all the light in the world, all the goodness and safety.

He cut down another snaky demon that was creeping up an IV stand to kill the young woman who lay there in the deep throes of a coma. For a moment, Gabriel looked down on her sleeping face, debating whether or not she deserved to die. He gently touched her face, smoothing back some dark hair, and she shifted in her unnatural sleep. Smiling softly, Gabriel lifted his sword and plunged it through her abdomen. She let out a cry, jerking upright in her bed and pressing her hands to her bleeding belly. She stared at him with wide eyes, but they quickly clouded with death. 

Gabriel felt her heart and soul go shrieking into the heaven’s above, but he feared God would not allow her in… not with the state of the world as it was… not with His disbelief in mankind’s ability to become good again. Maybe God would close the Gates of Heaven to everyone save the angels he had sent down. Maybe he would sent all his children to Hell in a hand basket. 

Gabriel wiped his sword on the soiled bed sheets. 

On the floor below, he sensed Michael’s approach. He knew that when Michael reached the upper floors—the floors Gabriel had been clearing—he would not be happy. Michael liked to save the world, to play the tragic hero who could never relish his work in the face of an angry and disappointed creator. 

Gabriel relished the sweetness of being the good son, rather than the rebellious prodigal one. “Dear Michael,” he said to himself. “When will you learn?”

Overhead, the fluorescent light flickered and came on. Then, one by one, each light in the hospital came on. The added goodness and righteousness of Michael was pushing back the darkness. Alone, Gabriel was not enough, but together they always were.

Gabriel quickly left the dead comatose girl’s room, cutting down more monsters as he went to join his brother in the lower floors. 

…

Xion pushed open the glass doors with Ventus close at her heels like a clinging shadow. She would have liked to feel the cool kiss of air conditioning, but it was as hot in the hospital as it was outside. Their journey from the old Blackheart mansion to Destiny Island Hospital had been slowed greatly by the many monsters that lurked on the roads outside. They bred in the shadows and attacked relentlessly, like buzzing mosquitoes or flies on a corpse. 

As much as Xion hated and feared Michael’s control inside her, she knew they would be dead without his help.

“Ven,” she forced out. It was still hard to speak. Her mouth felt almost separated from the rest of her, like it belonged to someone else, and she had to devote all her attention to forming words.

“Yeah?” he whispered. His voice was soft and so much like Roxas’s that she wanted to turn back and look, but she couldn’t. It was hard enough to speak. Moving her own body was a hopeless battle. She was out of control, unreachable, blocked off.

She didn’t have anything to say to him, neither an apology nor an expression of gratitude and he knew that. Silently, he followed her into the hospital. Immediately, all the fluorescent overhead lights buzzed to life, starling him. He skittered like a stray cat, but Xion’s body continued without faltering. 

Michael was using her like a puppet.

Silently, they moved through the first floor and she punched the button for the elevator. Waiting just on the other side of the doors was another strong and beautiful man, just like Michael. Ventus recoiled, frightened, but Xion felt her mouth smile.

“Gabriel, how’s it going?” she asked, well, Michael asked.

The angel smiled and blew his horn, shattering her eardrums. Beside her, Ventus clapped his hands over his ears and whimpered. 

“Alright, I suppose,” he said after a moment of thought. “I’ve cleared out floors Five through Three and some of Two. Care to assist with the rest of Two and all of One?”

Xion felt herself lurch, heart skipping beats. “Cleared out?”

Gabriel nodded. “Yes,” he said firmly. “Everyone is dead, Michael.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“Do you think any of these people deserve to be saved?”

“Yes!” Xion felt her hands touching her shoulders, her arms, and her face. “There are always good people. Look at these two.”

‘Two?!’ Xion realized with a start. ‘Where’s Roxas?’

“I see them. That one was a vessel for demons. He tormented his own brother, his twin, himself. And the girl loves him with her tainted hate-filled heart. Why would you want to save any of them, Michael?”

“Everyone should be given a chance to come back.”

“You destroyed Deirdre and Richard Blackheart? Where was their chance?”

Michael lowered Xion’s eyes and closed them. 

Blind, she waited for this to be over.

“I regret murdering them outright, but you have wiped out this hospital.”

“I have,” Gabriel said.

“And you do not regret…”

“I was only doing what we were sent here to do, Michael.”

“We were sent here to save them!”

“They cannot be saved.”

“How would you know?! You were never human, never tested, never loved or hated!”

“Neither did you!” Gabriel shouted. “This is not a test! This is us simply doing what we are told!”

Anger boiled inside her, not her own, though. “We are our own people! We are angels!”

“You’ve always loved that title, haven’t you, Michael?” Gabriel snarled.

With a howl, Xion-Michael threw herself at Gabriel. She felt the bite of the sword through her body as cold and terrible as ice. She had been stabbed and hurt before with Michael inside her and he had healed her and simply pushed the pain away. This was like nothing she had felt before. She felt Michael peeling off of her soul, separating, and she felt herself begin to die. A moment later, she crashed to the linoleum and lay still and cold.

“Xion!” Ventus was all around her, gathering her damaged body up in his arms. “You’re going to be okay!”

“W-Why did that happen?” she whispered and tasted blood in her mouth. 

Ventus touched her face carefully, as if petting broken glass or something fine and delicate. “I don’t know, but it’s going to be okay. I won’t let you die.”

“Am I dying?” she whispered. She could still hear Gabriel and Michael shouting at each other, but she paid them no mind. Instead, she reached up and touched Ventus’s face gently. “You know, even when I hated you, I loved you.”

He put his hand over hers on his face, pressing her touch even closer. “I’m sorry, Xion. I never saw you…”

“You see me now?”

“Yes.”

“What should I do?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. Just hold on.”

“I am.” 

For what felt like forever, he just held her in his warm embrace and she stared up into his face, into his deep ocean-blue eyes. 

Then, suddenly, Michael’s golden visage filled her vision and she almost asked him to go away, but found that her mouth wouldn’t work. She felt so cold and thought, ‘This is the end… I’ll die here.’ Michael touched her face and then put his hand down on her abdomen. She felt him pushing into her again, taking over her, and she pushed him out.

“No…” she whispered. “I don’t want…”

“I will save you,” Michael said.

Ventus sucked in air, but Xion gazed blearily at him. 

“I don’t want you… taking over me…”

“Xion, it’s your life,” Ventus whispered and realized it was just like her argument to him earlier. Their roles had reversed. Now, he was begging her to become possessed to save herself. She had been asking him to become possessed to save everyone else. “I was so wrong,” he whispered.

Michael looked at him, smiled, and nodded. Then, regardless of what Xion wanted, he pushed his way into her and was gone. Ventus watched desperately as the wound in her abdomen stitched up until there wasn’t even a scar on her. Then, with a shower of golden light, Michael was standing beside them again, looking down with watchful gentle eyes.

“You…” Ventus whispered. “You could have taken me all along.”

Michael smiled serenely. “That is the difference between angels and demons.”

“But she…”

“I needed to save her.”

“What about…?”

“This place might never really come back to the light, to Heaven and God, but we will wait for them. Those that survived this night will have doubts about the Dark One. They will wonder why there was so much death because of him. Maybe some will come back to the light and that will be the beginning of the end for Lucifer.”

“You’ll still wait for us?”

Michael smiled. “I have always loved you and I always will. I was the first in all Heaven to bow down before you and I will always stand against God for you.”

“Why?”

“Because of people like you and Xion and your righteous Sora Strife. You will always be worthy of my sacrifice.” Then, Michael reached out and gently ruffled Ventus’s blonde hair. “I am sorry for all the carnage here. You should just leave this place. There is nothing more you can do, alright?”

Ventus nodded, looking up into the face of the angel.

Michael smiled. “Good.”

Then, Ventus was alone in the brightly lit hospital with Xion wrapped in his arms. Outside, the great rift in the sky closed like a wound and two angels dove upwards into it, disappearing until they were needed again. The air cleared of its sick sulfurous scent and the distant Gates of Hell clanged shut. The world was quiet and still, peaceful and exhausted, healing almost. Through that silence, Xion’s distant voice whispered, ‘It’s quiet now. It’s quiet now…’

“Ven?” Xion whispered as if waking from a long sleep. She touched her bloodied abdomen, feeling the smooth flesh beneath her shirt where a gaping murderous wound had been before.

“Yeah?”

“Did somebody save me?”

He was quiet a moment and then whispered, “Yes, Xion. Someone saved us all…”

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

Epic death!


	22. Namine Blackheart: Pt IV

I just rediscovered Watership Down and a cool movie called Felidae. They’re both those movies that are labeled “For Kids,” but you watch them and they scare adults. Are there any other movies like that? Watership Down is so messed up—the rabbits all kill each other and are rabid and scary and crap. Even the first ten minutes of it are scary and violent. I haven’t actually seen Felidae, but it looks awesome and gory and wonderful. I’m going to charge around looking for a copy of it so I can watch it!

Are there any other movies like that? Hmm…

X X X

“No!” Kairi sobbed. “No, no!” She cupped his face in her hands, crying desperately over him so that her tears washed away some of the blood on his face. “No, Sora! Please, come back! I love you! I love you! Please, come back!” Beneath her hands, the pulse in his throat was dead and the blood seeping out of him was growing cold. “No! Sora, damn it, breathe! Come on, please, don’t die! No, Sora, come back! I love you! Come back to me… come back… come back…”

She cradled his body against her own as if to press the life back into him, as if to make him come back, but Sora didn’t came back. The basement was dim and still, the silence broken only by Kairi’s sobbing, and the darkness shattered by the light streaming down the steps from the open hidden doorway. 

“Sora,” she sobbed. “Please, please, come back… Come back to me!”

But only Namine came back. Her dead sister appeared in the sunken hole that had once led into the depths of Hell, standing there in a white dress. She looked beautiful—no longer the demon-creature with the twisted face that had appeared to Sora in the hospital, nor the waif Kairi had seen on the beach, nor the slinky little wisp that had been in her dreams. She was whole and as lovely as she had been when she was living, before all this had happened.

“Namine!” Kairi sobbed. “My Sora is dead…”

Strangely, Namine did not turn to face her sister even after she had spoken. Instead, she turned to speak with the empty air, holding out her arms as if embracing someone Kairi couldn’t see. Namine’s pale face curved with a soft smile and she began to speak. “Yes, I know. You saved us all…”

“Namine? Who are you talking to?”

“I can take it from you, if you want,” Namine whispered and appeared to be gently rubbing someone’s arms and back.

“Namine, are you talking to Sora? Is Sora’s ghost there?” Kairi asked. 

“It will send me to Hell. No, no! Not like that! If I take the wound from you, the wound that was inflicted by Hell, I will have to go there. You were half in Hell when you were killed.” She paused. “No, I’ll be alright. I’ll go with Mio to guard the secondary gates.” She smiled beautifully. “I want to. Please, let me take it from you. I chose to die, but you couldn’t avoid it.”

“What can you take?” Kairi asked, but Namine didn’t pay any attention to her sister.

“It’s alright. It won’t hurt me. I want to go with Mio. If I don’t go with her, I’d stay here with Mayu anyway and only being able to watch is killing me.” She paused, then laughed. “I know I’m already dead, but please? If not for me or for yourself, then do it for Kairi, please.”

“For me?” Kairi whispered and her eyes welled with fresh tears. She touched Sora’s bloodstained dead face.

“You know Riku is dead, Sora. Our parents are dead. I am dead. Kairi is going to be even more alone if you’re dead. Please, let me take it from you…”

There was a long moment of her silence and she embraced someone tightly. Then, Namine strode over to stand above Kairi and Sora’s body. She smiled at her sister, but didn’t say a word. Instead, she knelt, put her hands on Sora’s chest, and in a flash of light vanished. 

Kairi was alone in the basement again, cradling her dead love. She bent over his face, kissing his cheeks and his eyes and his forehead. “Sora, please, what’s happening?” Alone in the darkness, she waited to see what would happen.

…

Roxas charged hastily from the old Blackheart mansion, trying to run despite his wounds and hating himself for it with each step. Choking and gasping, he bent over with his hands braced on his knees and tried to catch his breath. Then, after a long moment, he straightened and began to run down the wooded cobblestone driveway again. 

Behind him, the hellish mansion shrank into the night. The moon was a white-silver disk on the horizon, hanging over the ocean like a half-realized smile. It reminded him of beautiful Namine, of her moon-white skin and soft celestial smile.

The chain link fence had been shoved aside, into the woods, by Richard and Deirdre Blackheart so the way was clear. He rushed through the gates and practically ran into Xion and Ventus as they came up the driveway. 

“Ven! Xion!” Roxas gasped out.

Ventus put his hands on his twin’s heaving shoulders, steadying him. “Roxas, what’s wrong? What is it?”

“Sora’s hurt!” he panted and grabbed a hold of Ventus tightly to prevent himself from falling. Everything hurt. It felt as if his body was coming apart at the seams. 

“What?” Xion asked. “What do you mean, hurt?”

“Vanitas tore his throat out while he was trying to close the Gates of Hell.”

“His throat,” Ventus repeated. 

“Yes! We need an ambulance!”

Ventus tightened his fingers in his twin’s arm. “You can’t. Almost everyone at the hospital is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yes, Gabriel slaughtered them all.”

“Gabriel? Is he gone?”

“Yes,” Ventus nodded. “He and Michael returned to Heaven.”

There was silence between them for a long moment as Roxas desperately tried to think of a way to save Sora. Ventus’s eyes were on his twin’s face, but he occasionally glanced at Xion. There seemed to be a certain softness between them. Xion was standing close where she normally would have put half a mile between them.

Suddenly, Xion’s eyes glazed over and her voice became distant. “I can take it from you,” she whispered.

“It’s one of her episodes,” Roxas whispered. “She’s channeling something.”

Ventus wrapped strong one arm around Xion and the other around Roxas, cradling his injured twin. Then, he said sharply, head snapping in the mansion’s direction though it was veiled by trees, “Let’s hurry.” He led his friend and his brother back to the hell-house where it had all began and was going to come to an end.

…

Then, Sora suddenly sucked in a deep choking breath and sat up in Kairi’s arms, pressing at his throat with both hands. Beneath his cold fingers, he felt smooth undamaged flesh and a beating pulse of life. He was alive when he should have been dead. What had happened? It took a moment for everything to return to him—his memories of the Gates, of Vanitas’s monstrous face, of Namine coming and taking his injury from him. “Namine!” he shouted and his voice echoed against the walls hollowly. “Namine!”

“Sora! You’re alive!” Kairi flung her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. 

For a moment, he seemed to have forgotten that she was there. Then, he coiled her tightly in his arms and kissed her fiercely. 

“Sora,” she sobbed into his neck and chest until his blood-soaked shirt was drenched with her tears.

“I was dead,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she murmured. “But you came back… you came back! I love you. Please, stay. Don’t leave me again.”

“But Namine… was that a dream?”

Kairi shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she whispered. 

“I saw Namine talking to someone, but I couldn’t see you.”

“Then she really… went to Hell for me?”

She nodded and hugged him. “Sora, she wanted to.”

“But—”

“Please, let’s not talk about it. You’re alive and that’s all that matters. Namine… she was already dead.”

Sora didn’t speak. Instead, he hugged her tightly, but she felt that his mind was not on her. She knew he was thinking about Namine and kissed him. Her tongue touched his lower lip, begging for entrance, and Sora readily obliged her. Just like that, it was like she had never left. All her love and trust for him came rushing back to the surface, pressing against her skin from the inside and she felt as if her heart would explode with the pent-up love she had for him. Sora pressed his hands against her back, holding her flush against his warm body. It was like he wanted to absorb her into him.

From behind them, someone cleared their throat. Standing tightly together was the trio of Namine’s wonderful friends—the twins and mysterious Xion. Roxas was smiling and so was Xion, but Ventus looked as if he wasn’t sure what kind of expression to wear. 

Sora blushed, but Kairi was unruffled. She stood up and carefully helped Sora to his feet as if afraid he would crumble at any moment. 

“Sora?” Ventus murmured.

“Well, I guess you’re alright,” Xion said. “Either Roxas exaggerated or something miraculous happened.”

“Something miraculous happened,” Sora said softly. He looked slightly guilty, sky-blue eyes downcast. 

“What happened?” Roxas asked.

“Namine… Namine took the injury from me,” he whispered.

“Took the injury?” Xion repeated.

“Yes,” he said. “And she went to Hell for me.”

“Hell for you?!” Roxas shrieked. 

“She said she wanted to go. She wanted to guard the secondary Gates with Mio Blackheart.”

Xion smiled. “That sounds like Namine. She always was a doer rather than a watcher.”

Roxas lowered his eyes as well. In that moment, it was clear that he had loved Namine. “So long as that was what she wanted…” he whispered.

Sora nodded and carefully reached out. He hugged Roxas with the tenderness of two men who cared for the same woman. Kairi put her arms around them as well, smiling softly and sweetly. From the other side, Xion wrapped her arms around the three of them. For a long moment, Ventus stood beside them, shivering and looking on. Xion turned to him and held out her hand. Timidly, he took it and joined the great hug. They stood like that in the basement of the old Blackheart Mansion for a long time.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	23. Leaving the Islands, Again

I love how about three people actually cared if Sora died. You are all heartless and evil!

X X X

The night was dark and cool. The moon hung beautiful silver-white in the sky. The ocean was like a shattered mirror, reflecting the light from the full moon and the smattering of diamond stars. There were some wispy clouds on the horizon like puffs of cotton-candy. In the dark woods, night birds and owls cried. The island was primordial now, archaic, old and quiet, devoid of humans and demons. There was a certain graveyard stillness as well, but it was comforting. The world was breathing easily now.

Ventus walked Xion and Roxas back to the new Blackheart house, a supportive arm around each of them, in search of a vehicle that could fit all of them—including Sora and Kairi—so they could drive to the airport, catch a red-eyed midnight flight, and leave Destiny Islands far behind. Kairi and Sora were walking far behind them, holding hands and whispering. Kairi might have been crying—for her sister, for her dead Riku, for the pain of almost losing Sora—but Ventus did not turn to look. He didn’t want to intrude on her private pain.

Finally, the dark empty house came into view. 

Sora was the only one who went into the house while the others waited outside on the lawn in the dark. He took the keys to Deirdre’s Station Wagon from the wall peg, stood a moment gazing out the window at Namine’s decaying garden, and then returned to their friends. 

Sora drove them to the airport in silence. Ventus, Roxas, and Xion were in the backseat. Roxas was unbuckled since they were on a deserted road, leaning forward in his seat with his shirt pulled up so Xion could wrap some of his wound with the First Aid box Kairi had gotten out of the trunk. Ventus was leaning against the window with his eyes closed and his head bouncing against the glass occasionally. Beside Sora, Kairi was seated in the passenger seat. Sometimes, she reached over and touched his thigh, smiling at him through soft sad eyes.

“What are we going to do?” Xion asked when she finished with Roxas.

Kairi turned in her seat to face Xion. “I still have my apartment in the city and a job modeling. Maybe we could go there and try to make a new life for ourselves.”

“What about Riku?” Roxas asked, ever the level-headed one. 

“What about him?” 

“You were living with him? Aren’t people going to wonder why you came back from your sister’s funeral without him and with four strangers?”

Kairi rolled her shoulders. “Does it matter? I’ll work something out. It’s a big city. I’m not sure anyone would notice anyone else being gone. If they do, what are the chances of anyone being able to trace him to here? Everyone here is dead now. This place is a living graveyard.”

“You’re alright with just leaving him here?” Sora asked her quietly.

She nodded. “He’s dead… Does it matter what happens to his body?”

“I suppose not,” Sora murmured. 

Xion reclined in her seat, pressing her shoulder against Ventus’s. Ventus glanced at her with a sleepy expression on his face and closed his eyes again. Her face broke out in a small tender smile and she closed her eyes comfortably. Roxas watched her from the corner of his eyes for a moment, but then turned his gaze back out the window at the passing night. He was happy his best friend had gotten over her anger at his twin. It was hard with them always being at odds with each other. 

In the front seat, Kairi kissed Sora’s cheek.

Yes, all was right with the world.

Roxas leaned against the window, trying to make himself comfortable. After a long moment, he nodded off to sleep and for once in his life was not plagued with nightmares of his twin’s demonic face leering down at him before carving his body like a jack-o-lantern.

…

People rarely came to Destiny Islands as it was not a real tourist destination, but enough people left that there were semi-regular flights leaving them. When Kairi and Riku flew in, they had been on a flight to pick-up people who were leaving and had traveled with only carry-on bags. It had been quick and strange, but they had pulled it off. Now, they all managed to catch a plane that was just leaving and bound for the big city. Without luggage and earning strange looks from the pilot and flight attendants because Sora’s shirt was covered in dried blood as was most of Kairi’s lower body. Even so, they comfortably had the plane to themselves. 

After all, everyone on Destiny Islands was dead.

Again, Ventus, Roxas, and Xion took a row while Sora and Kairi sat behind them. It was late, three in the morning, and they had been up all night. Xion sat between the twins, cradling them. Roxas had his head in her lap and Ventus was leaning on her shoulder. She laid her head on top of his and breathed into his golden hair. All were resting comfortably.

Kairi nestled in Sora’s arms, touching his throat and face, relishing the pulse of life beneath his amber flesh. He stroked her back and hair, but gazed quietly out the window at the night flashing beyond the thick glass. The lights on the wings of the airplane were like too-close pursuing stars.

“Sora?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you going to miss the islands?”

He was quiet for a moment. “In a way,” he murmured finally.

“Do you want to stay?”

He shook his head. “No. That place holds bad memories for me now. It is not beautiful anymore.”

She was quiet for a long time, gazing up at him through her curtain of silken cherry tresses. Then, finally, she whispered, “I’m… I’m really glad you’re coming to the city with me.”

Sora smiled, cerulean eyes catching in the light. “I’m happy to be with you, Kai,” he murmured. 

She lifted her chin and he lowered his head. Tenderly, they kissed with the softness of people who had been through a lot and needed a gentle loving moment. Sora threaded his fingers through her warm hair and she fisted her hands in his crunchy bloodied shirt. Then, they broke apart, staring into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Then, she snuggled against him, settling against the heat of his body. Sora held her against him comfortably and she listened to his heartbeat until it lulled her to a sweet relaxed sleep.

…

By the time Kairi woke up, they had already landed in the city and dawn was just breaking on the horizon. Together, they bumbled off the plane, through the airport, and onto the streets. Xion, Roxas, Ventus, and Sora all stared up at the towering buildings and candied lights with awe. Kairi, used to this even after her departure, hailed a cab and directed the cabbie to her apartment. There, they walked up the seven flights of stairs. She fished her house key out of the potted plant beside her door, unlocked the door, and let them in. 

“We should rest,” Ventus murmured. Gently, he helped his injured twin sit down on the couch. 

“I know,” Kairi said and began pulling blankets and pillows from the hall closet. “Make yourselves at home.”

Xion snarled herself up in a quilt, flopped down in an overstuffed armchair, and fell asleep in seconds. Ventus took a moment to make Roxas comfortable before making himself a pallet on the rug and laying down there. Then, he, too, was quickly asleep again. 

“Sora?”

“Yes?”

“Will you come sleep with me?”

He stared at her for a moment, sky-blue eyes glowing in the dark. Then, slowly, he nodded. She led him to her bedroom and found the bed still rumpled from her hasty departure the night she had gotten he call about Namine. 

Riku had slept in this bed with her.

It must have shown on her face, the shock and small sadness, because Sora gently kissed her cheek and whispered, “It’s alright. Take tonight and mourn for him. I’ll still be here in the morning.”

“Sora…”

He smiled softly. “It’s okay, Kai.” Then, he returned to the living room and made himself comfortable beside Ventus on the floor.

Kairi stood in her bedroom for a long time, just gazing at her rumpled bed. Then, she lay face down on it and cried all her sorrows for herself and for Namine and for Riku. She may have cried herself to sleep, but she had no nightmares and woke feeling refreshed. 

The threat of Hell was closed tightly.

The world could breathe now. 

It was over…

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 

I want this to end at twenty-five chapters so… The next chapter will be them settling in and the last one will probably be the usual.


	24. New Lives for the Hurt

I will have you all know that I am about ten minutes away from DEFEATING Kingdom Hearts! That’s epic and wonderful for me! It will be the first video game in history that I have beaten. (I’m in the last six minutes of Fatal Frame 2, but the stupid Kusabi keeps killing me! I can’t fight without getting touched at least twice and he just keeps killing me!!!!!!)

X X X

~Three Weeks Later~

In three weeks, the new broken-little-family-they-had-become had managed to sort out most of the mess that had followed them from Destiny Islands. 

Since the five of them couldn’t comfortably fit in Kairi’s little one-bedroom apartment, Kairi and Sora, with their combined paychecks, started putting money down on a little house that was strangely nestled between skyscrapers. It was a cute little colonial with green shutters and white siding, big picture windows, a neat little sidewalk, and a small dying garden outside. Kairi and Xion tried their hand at growing something, but failed. They didn’t have Namine’s touch.

Kairi Blackheart continued to work at her modeling agency and go to university part-time as she had been. Sora Strife, as beautiful as he was, was asked to model alongside her, but declined. He found a little shop that taught scuba diving, snorkeling, and swimming and worked there every day from nine to five, enjoying it greatly. Sometimes, it was obvious he missed the islands—missed the surf and the sea and the endless golden sun—but he never complained.

Ventus and Roxas Donovan enrolled in high school with Xion Makker. They were A-students, part of the National Honor Society within days. Roxas had healed completely and Ventus had come out of his shell. His romance with Xion had blossomed to soft kisses and the occasional date, during which Sora stayed up at night like a worried father while Kairi slept soundly in bed. Nothing bothered her as much as it bothered Sora. Roxas said he didn’t want a girlfriend, not yet. He admitted to having loved Namine and sometimes Sora heard him crying in the room he shared with Ventus at night. 

They were a strange sort of family. Kairi came home late from the modeling agency, but Sora made it home at five each day. He cooked dinner—meatloaf and mashed potatoes, corned beef and cabbage, pea soup, sandwiches, chicken salad, and the occasional Hamburger Helper. Ventus, Roxas, and Xion were always home before him. Then, Roxas went off to the job he had secured for himself busing tables at a diner and Ventus remained at home writing diligently on an occult novel. Xion left a few hours after Roxas to where she worked at an ice cream parlor. She and Roxas normally made it home at the same time, around nine o’clock, to eat some reheated dinner courtesy of Ventus. Ventus usually ate with Sora when dinner was fresh. Then, the kids went to bed while Sora waited up for Kairi. She ate some leftover and went to bed with Sora shortly after. When she got up, the house was normally empty—Ventus, Roxas, and Xion at school and Sora at work—so she cleaned up and made some French toast for breakfast for everyone the next morning. Then, around noon, she went to work and the day repeated. It was the perfect give-and-take schedule.

Sometimes, they fought. The twins fought as twins occasionally did, but made up incredibly quickly as people with the same face and such a bond only could. Xion and Ventus sometimes squabbled, but Xion could hold a grudge for eternity. It made life difficult for about a week before Ventus begged for forgiveness. Sora was impossible to be angry with. He got this look in his eyes that made him look like a kicked puppy. Kairi always coddled him and kissed him whenever they fought.

A while ago, there had been a news broadcast about a massacre on Destiny Islands. Everyone was dead and there were no suspects since it was such a small deserted place with no record of who left or arrived. It was also discovered that there was no birth or death record of anyone on the islands, something that probably made it much easier for the cult to murder and sacrifice. It had been all the buzz for about a week, but then there was another tragedy that took its place on the news. 

But life was good and safe and calm. 

…

Kairi came into the kitchen on Saturday morning. She didn’t have a shoot today and the kids had no school, but Sora was working till noon. Xion was standing at the stove, cooking omelets, while the twin boys sat at the table, reading and writing respectively. 

“Hey, guys,” Kairi said. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” Ventus said.

“Yeah, Xion hasn’t burned anything yet,” Roxas said.

Xion hurled a spoon at him, but Kairi snagged it with a practiced hand and laid it on the table at Ventus’s elbow.

Roxas had simply shifted his head to the side to avoid the spoon and now nonchalantly turned the page of Ventus’s manuscript. “This is good, Ven. I like this sentence—right here.”

“Circle it.” Ventus passed him a red pen.

Roxas did and continued reading. 

Kairi came to stand beside Xion at the stove, looking into the pan. The omelet was sticking to the bottom of the pan. “You should use little more butter and that wouldn’t happen,” she said.

“Next time,” Xion said and scraped it viciously out. She dumped it onto a plate and put it in front of Ventus. “Yeah, yeah, it’s ugly, but it tastes good,” she snapped before he could say anything.

Ventus smiled up at her. “Did you put extra love in it?”

She grinned. “Oh yes,” she murmured an dipped her head to kiss him gently on the lips.

Kairi ignored them, but Sora came in the door at that moment and said, “Hey, hey, not at the table.”

“You kiss Kairi at the table,” Xion protested.

“Yeah, but I’m an adult.”

“You’re nineteen,” she mumbled.

“Yes, and I can vote,” he explained, “which makes me an adult.”

She snorted and dumped a wad of butter into her pan. Kairi passed her a bowl of pre-scrambled eggs and some cheese.

“Want me to do that?” Sora asked.

“No. I’ve got it,” she said and stuck her tongue between her teeth in concentration.

“I was thinking,” Sora said, “We should go to the lake today. You know, get out and enjoy life a little. What do you say, gang?”

Roxas looked up, nervously touching his chest. 

“A little tan will do those scars some good,” Sora said.

Roxas smiled. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

“Ven, how about you?”

“I’d love to go. I’ve never been to a lake, only the ocean,” he said and busily typed away.

“Xion?”

“I don’t have a bathing suit,” she said.

Kairi put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a bunch you can try on.”

Xion grimaced. “But you’re a model.”

“So?”

“You’re so skinny.”

Kairi hip-chucked her. “You’re skinny, too. I’m sure I have something that will fit you.”

“Alright, alright, since you’re all so dead-set on going, I’ll try one on.”

Sora didn’t ruffle her hair, but he gave her a loving fatherly expression that she had never received from her own parents. Sora was such a wonderful beautiful person, so kind and gentle, and he really loved all of them even though he had been hurt enough in his lifetime.

Once they were all outfitted in bikinis and trunks, they piled into the clunky station wagon Sora had bought and headed for the lake. The sun was shining on the beautiful dark water like shards of refracting light and the sky was perfect crystal-clear blue. They piled out of the car, carrying umbrellas and a cooler and a small collection of towels. Immediately, every head within a mile radius turned to look at Kairi. Maybe the recognized her from her adds and billboards and other smiling glossy magazine photos—the beautiful fiery red-head with the killer smile. Sora didn’t step protectively closer to her. He wasn’t threatened or concerned. He knew Kairi loved him. Instead, he shouldered the big umbrella and playfully nudged Xion in the back with it. 

They staked out a small plot, laying out their towels and putting up the umbrellas. Roxas nervously took off his shirt, revealing all the pearl-white scars on his slender body. A few eyes turned away from Kairi at the sight of his battered form in curiosity. Ventus’s eyes grew dark and sad at the sight of what he had done to his brother. 

“Roxas, I—” Ventus began.

His twin smiled at him gently and touched the place on his chest that had once been skinned to the bone. “It’s okay, Ven. It doesn’t matter anymore.” Then, Roxas toed the water, found it wonderfully warm, and dove in, giving them no more time to think about it. 

Ventus quickly followed with a great powerful splash to rival Sora’s patented cannonball. 

“Wait, Xion! We don’t want you to burn!” Kairi shouted and smeared some lotion of Xion’s shoulders while the girl squirmed and protested. Then, she dove in with a perfect swan dive, sliding beneath the water without hardly stirring it. She came up beside Ventus, scaring him so that he squawked like a disgruntled goose. 

“Sora, will you put some sunscreen on me?” Kairi asked.

He smiled and gently rubbed her bare back and shoulders. He put his soft lips on the back of her neck, nipping at her pulse so that heat pooled in her belly and made her ache with want for him. She hadn’t had him since before she left the islands the first time. They had been putting their relationship on hold while Kairi mourned Riku and they tried to get their new lives in order. Then, teasingly, Sora gave Kairi a small kiss on the mouth and dove into the water as well. She remained on the sand, watching her new family. 

Sora was in his element, splashing and laughing. She hadn’t seen him so happy in a long time.

“Be careful!” she shouted. “Don’t drown each other!”

X X X

I cut this chapter in half so I could make it to twenty five chapters. 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	25. The End for SOME

ATTENTION!!!! Important!!!! I’m not going to be writing for a while on Fanfiction. I’m going to devote most of my attention to an original work that I must transfer, edit, complete, and then will be trying to really publish so… Try not to miss me too much! Attention!!!! IMPORTANT!!!!

The usual in this chapter since it is the end after all. So, here is your reward for making it all the way to the end!

X X X

They spent the entire day at the lake, enjoying the sun and the sand and the water. Then, as dusk was falling they returned home and barbequed in the backyard. Sora flipped the burgers deftly and rolled hotdogs. Ventus, Roxas, and Xion—somehow still having energy in that way only the young really could—played badminton with much yelling and shrieking and laughing. Kairi sat in a lawn chair and swatted hopelessly at mosquitoes.

“I’m getting eaten alive, here,” Kairi said to Sora.

He smiled and lit her a citronella candle. His smile made her melt and the heat of his body pressed against her flesh. Oh, how she wanted him, but he returned to the grill and placed the rolls on the grate to heat. The shuttlecock flew towards him and smacked him in the back of the head. 

“Oye! Keep it under control, you three!” he said and tossed it back.

“How soon till we eat?” Xion asked. “I’m starved.”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

“Soon,” he repeated.

“How soon?” 

“Jeez, eat Ventus!”

“No! Don’t eat me!” 

Ventus shrieked and dashed across the lush lawn. Xion gave chase after him, swinging her racket and hooting wildly. Roxas laughed and tried to get between them, but Xion caught him on the side of the head with her racket, clubbing him onto the ground. He lay there, groaning.

“Oh my gosh!” Kairi gasped and hurried to lean over Roxas’s face. 

“Are you okay?” Ventus asked. 

“Roxas, I’m sorry!” Xion whispered and gently touched the egg on the side of his face. 

“Owwie!” he whimpered and then laughed. “I’m okay, really! That was nothing!”

Ventus and Xion each grabbed a hand and heaved him to his feet. They half-dragged, half-eased him onto the bench of the picnic table while Sora continued cooking. Kairi fetched him an icepack and returned just as Sora was laying out dinner. 

“Bon appétit!” Sora said and handed over the bottle of ketchup.

It was the first time they had all eaten together in a while. After dinner, Xion and Kairi disposed of the paper plates while Sora built a fire in the chiminea. Then, they all lounged comfortably around it, soaking up the heat and the smell of wood-smoke.

Roxas was the first to fall asleep.

Then, Sora told Ventus and Xion that they should turn in as well. Since Xion was starting to nod, she agreed. Sora carried Roxas to bed, tucked everyone in, and then returned outside to sit with Kairi alone. 

The night was beautiful and clear. The moon hung like a great silver mirror in the velvety night sky, like a half-realized crescent smile. The sky was full of stars yet the night was empty of everything save mosquitoes. It was quiet and still, only the sounds of chirping crickets broke the silence. 

Then, Kairi did. “Are the kids asleep?”

“Yeah, out like lights.”

She smiled over at Sora and leaned her head against his shoulder. “So, I have you all to myself?”

“Kairi—”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re upstairs.”

“We can stay outside.”

“You’ll get mosquito bites all over.”

She looked disgruntled. “And you won’t?”

“You know they don’t like me.”

“Which I hate you for, by the way.” Kairi chuckled. 

Sora kissed her cheek. “I do want you. It’s been far too long…”

“So take me, Sora. I love you.”

“I love you too, Kai.” 

Then, Sora hugged her against him and kissed her deeply. She opened her mouth for him, begging him to taste and touch every inch of her body. He pulled her from her lawn chair so that she straddled his lap. Though her thin sundress, she could feel the hard bulge of his arousal pressing against her soft sex. She arched her back, moaning loudly against her mouth. Sora nipped her lower lip and suckled her throat, but she only moaned louder.

“Kai?”

“Uh?”

“You have to be quiet.”

“Quiet?”

“Yes. You’re too loud,” he murmured. “They might hear you. It’s warm, the windows are open upstairs.”

She blushed and put her hand to her mouth, biting it. 

Sora grinned devilishly and ran his hands down her body, cupping her breasts. He pinched her nipples and she let out a muffled cry. Her body was so sensitive from its lack of touch for nearly a month that just his breath on her skin made her ache with wetness and heat. He ran his hands down the curve of her hips and cupped her crotch. His finger deftly found that most sensitive place on her and it was as if they had never been apart.

“S-Sora,” she gasped.

He shushed her, but torturously stroked her hot wet slit. 

She bit her palm to keep her cries from escaping and threw her head back. Sora suckled on her exposed throat, lapping attention on her pulse with is tongue. Then, he pushed aside her panties and slipped one finger into her. Kairi gasped out his name and pushed down on his hand, forcing him deeper.

“Ah, Sora, please…”

He gathered her up in his arms and laid her down in the cool damp grass. His hips fit neatly between her thighs like the missing piece of a puzzle and he purposefully bumped her sex with his hardness. She gasped and clutched him against her chest. 

“Sora, please, stop it. I can’t… ah!”

He pushed another finger into her, stroking her most sensitive swollen clitoris and her inner walls. She gripped his shoulders tightly in her hands, sobbing and gasping against his throat as she feverously kissed her. He delved into her mouth with his tongue, battling for dominance that he easily won. Kairi was making soft sounds into his mouth.

Sora lowered the zipper of his jeans, released himself, and sheathed himself inside her while she wasn’t expecting it. She let out a shriek of pleasure and surprise and he groaned. She was so tight like a vice grip around the length of him. He thrust into her, burying himself to the hilt. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed her until he felt her tight heat around him again. He moaned against her throat, much better at being quiet than she was. She screamed as she started moving with measured fast rhythm. 

Again he reminded her, “Be quiet, Kai. The windows are open. They’ll hear you.”

She bit her hand again, but little moans and whimpers still escaped her. 

Sora pounded into her with more desperation than love and Kairi gripped him tightly against her breasts. The coil was winding in her belly, tight and hot, and she felt her juices gushing from her with the intense pleasure Sora was filling her with. She cried out, practically screaming, when she came. Sora followed her quickly, brought over the edge by her rippling muscles. He spilled inside her and she realized the feeling of him twitching as he emptied his seed into her body. Sora dipped his head and kissed her flushed swollen lips again. Then, he cradled her against his chest, sat up, and remained buried inside her. 

She panted until she could speak again. “Do you think they heard?”

“Nah,” Sora said, but his eyes gleamed in the darkness with mischief that Kairi didn’t see. 

…

Upstairs, Xion rolled over in the darkness of her room and knocked on the wall that separated her room from the twins’. A moment later, Ventus knocked back and she called quietly to him. “We have some serious blackmail on them now. What should we do with our knowledge?”

“I don’t know. Throw a party?” Ventus called back.

“We could do that anyway.” 

“I don’t know, Xion. It’s late, go to sleep.”

Xion laughed softly to herself, imagining Ventus’s soft beautiful eyes glowing in the moonlight, and rolled over to sleep. She wanted to be with him the same way Sora and Kairi were together. She wanted to be that close to someone, to be inside them—well, to have him inside her. That night, her dreams were full of thoughts of Ventus and she woke up bathed in seat the next morning with a blush on her face. Ventus might have known, but he didn’t say anything.

Yeah, life was good and perfect now, but…

…

Back on Destiny Islands, the pit of the old Blackheart house pulsed with faint orange light that faded even as Mayu watched. She turned her face to the sky and sighed in exhaustion. Where ever there was humanity—desire, hatred, rivalry, and even love—there would always be darkness. Where ever there was light, there had to be shadows just by the nature of light. 

It wasn’t over. 

It would never really be over. 

Not for Mayu, Mio, or Namine anyway. 

Sora, Kairi, Ventus, Roxas, and Xion would live out the rest of their lives in peace. Maybe, after they died, they would come to guard the Gates with the Blackheart twins and Namine, but then again, maybe they wouldn’t. For them, it was over.

For Namine, it was just beginning.

For the twins, it would never end.

…

__

It would always be…  
The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.  
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.  
He leadeth me beside the still waters.  
He restoreth my soul.  
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name sake.  
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,  
I will fear no evil for thou art with me.  
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.  
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.  
Thou annointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over.  
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,  
and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.  
—the 23rd psalm

**Versus**

O mighty Lord Satan,  
God of this world,  
God of my flesh,  
God of my mind,  
God of my innermost Will!

Every part of this world is within Your power.  
You are within every part of this world.  
Every part of me is within Your power.  
You are within every part of me.

I am Yours, whether I serve You willingly or not,  
for I am myself, whether I am true to myself or not.

Of my own free will, I now acknowledge Your power.  
Of my own free will, I now present myself to You.  
—self-initiation to Satan

**For Eternity…**  


X X X

And, drum roll please, we are finished!

Did that count as a non-happy ending? I think it was happy. For Sora’s group at least…

Here we go. Very important author's note, as always:

First, drop a review and let me know what you think! Are the characters way out of character? Does everybody hate Vanitas or Gabriel or Ventus? Think I torture Sora and Kairi way too much (but they normally get a happy ending)? Are permanently disgusted and can no longer even play Kingdom Hearts thanks to me? Loved it? Hated it? Are scared for life because of Hell almost opening? Are traumatized by the thought of so much crazy religion? (Remember, flames will be used to roast marshmallows and weenies! And I'll most likely flame you back for being silly.) Think I need to do more editing before I post chapters? Post to slow? Chapters are too short? Too long? Yada, yada, yada…

Second, I own nothing except my original characters: Deirdre and Richard and… I think that’s it because Michael and Gabriel already existed. I also own my plot since it got very far away from what Krystal Lily Potter originally suggested! But she owns the base idea! (Thank you so much for it, by the way. This was fun to write! Did you like it? Was it everything you hoped it would be?) So there, now I can't be sued!

Third, there will be no sequel… at all, so don't ask!

Fourth, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! **The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger.** (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

Finally, thank you for making it this far! All the way to the end! Woot! Yay! You are all awesome!


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